AVP: Omega
by SomeGuyOverHere
Summary: 2 years after the Reaper War, Cerberus still retains control over Omega and Aria T'loak wants it back. To reclaim her station she recruits Commander Jane Shepard, together they will take back Omega and destroy Cerberus once and for all. But they will soon learn that Cerberus isn't the worst enemy in Omega. The sequel to Predators: Variety of Prey and Aliens: Bane of the Reapers!
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

This was not the Hive.

" _Get that stuff unloaded immediately!"_

This was not home.

" _Yes sir!"_

This was somewhere else.

" _Get the containment team in here immediately. We do not move the subject until they show up!"_

It had all happened so quickly. Its birth had been a whirlwind of noise and blood. The womb had screamed it into the world in a fantastic explosion of gore. It had fed and grown as all of its kind did. Then its instincts changed, it heard the call of its mother, and it understood its purpose with enviable clarity.

 **Serve and protect the hive!**

There was no greater purpose.

But then then the men in the white suits had come. It had chased with intent to bring them back to the Hive. It killed many of them. Then they came with jolting rods and metal nets, it had expected them to kill.

Instead they had thrown it into a metal box, leaving it captured and helpless. It had tried to bleed itself, well aware that its blood was capable of melting through even stone. But the box did not yield to its blood and thus it was left trapped inside.

The call of the Hive, of the Queen, had felt so far then.

" _Containment team is here!"_

Now as it sat in this box with a million new scents, none of which were familiar, the call was nonexistent. It could not hear its brothers and sisters, it could not hear its Queen. The Hive was silent and it was alone.

" _Oh my!"_

A man lowered his eyes to the grate that served as its only window to the outside world. He stared at it as though appraising a fine piece of work, carefully taking into account every aspect from its prehensile tail to the second pair of teeth inside its mouth.

" _Aren't you simply beautiful, I can tell we're going to have a lot of fun you and I."_

" _Dr. Dufour, please keep away from the containment unit. This specimen is particularly dangerous."_

" _Oh I am quite aware soldier. That is why I want to begin observation as soon as possible."_

It hissed at the man, an act that had put fear into many a heart. But from the other side of the box the man simply chuckled in benign amusement.

" _Tsk, tsk, tsk, that won't work on me."_

" _Doctor please step back, were going to start transportation of the specimen to your lab."_

" _So much fun you and I, can't wait to see your little brothers and sisters."_

#

 _ **Three days after arrival**_

 _ **Bio-Lab 01**_

Dr. Dufour meticulously ran the silk handkerchief over his spectacles, once he was satisfied with their stainless condition he carefully balanced them back upon his nose.

"Dr. Dufour, we are ready to begin the test sir," said one of his assistants.

"Ah yes, very good, very good. To your places everyone!" he ordered with a grand gesture of his hands. How he envied his assistants, all of them so young and full of life. Buzzing around the laboratory like the little bees he'd kept as a child back in France.

"Everyone ready?" A chorus of affirmatives responded and Dufour pressed the activation button on the command console.

He then turned to the unmanned camera drone hovering just over his shoulder.

"This is Experiment 001: Impregnation," he began, "for the record I am Doctor Felipe Dufour, Head Scientist of Cerberus directing the progress of Project: Hive. For this test we shall be observing the impregnation process brought upon by the larval stage of species **XX121** or as Major Vilmos lovingly refers to it, the 'Facehugger'."

With a quick command from his Omni-tool the Doctor directed the drone towards the ballistic glass beyond which the experiment was being performed.

The experiment room held six aliens of different species and gender had been tied down to a medical gurney and placed into a circle with their heads in the center. They were all unconscious, something the Doctor was glad for he hated hearing the constant whining of test subjects.

"As you can see, we have number of test subjects ready for impregnation." He turned to one of his assistants, "bring out the specimens!" The assistant tapped a series of commands on her console. From out of the floor at the center of the test subjects, six pedestals rose each carrying large fleshy sack like ovals.

"The ovomorph or…" Dufour snorted, "egg if you prefer, has been shown to be quite delicate and possibly dangerous. As such we have delegated the handling of them to mechanical drones. The larvae inside of the eggs seems to be able to sense one a potential host is nearby…" As if on cue each of the eggs cracked open and bloomed, spreading their tops into four petals.

"Look!" Dufour had the drone zoom in on the hatching eggs. A small flicker of movement from the inside and the doctor was practically giddy with delight. "You see?! You see?! They sense the nearby hosts! Here come the larve!" Six pale spider like creatures resembling a pair of skeletal hands fused together and given a spine like tail crawled out of the eggs, steaming with the heat of their birth.

"Now, if the reports are correct. The larvae shall seek their host out and begin impregnation." True to the doctor's predictions the Facehuggers leapt from their eggs and began to make their way towards the provided hosts.

One of the aliens, a Batarian, unexpectedly began to stir.

"Oh my, it seems one of the test subjects was not given quite enough sedative."

"Should we stop the experiment Doctor?" asked one of the assistants. The Doctor shook his head, "no, this might actually be quite the opportunity to observe the process in a more natural setting."

" _What the fuck?"_ The Batarian coughed violently as he vainly tried to shake off his restraints. _"What is this? Where the fuck am I? HEY! WHERE AM I?!"_

"Quite noisy isn't he?"

The Facehugger leapt onto the Batarian's chest.

" _What the fuck?! What the fuck is this?! What the fuck is this?!"_ The Batarian's struggles increased, so much so that he actually shook the gurney, _"GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! GET ME THE-"_

The Facehugger leapt and as its name suggested, hugged itself onto the Batarian's face. The alien screamed but those screams were soon muffled as the Facehugger inserted its proboscis down the Batarian's throat.

"Ah! How fascinating," said the Doctor as he watched the implantation process with awe. He turned back to the camera drone and spoke, "the larvae shall supply the hosts with suitable atmosphere for breathing as it implants the beginnings of the next life stage into their oesophagus. The process shall take several hours so…" He brought out the archaic watch he wore on his wrist, "best set your timers."

#

Grafin had been cooking up a pot of red sand when suddenly those Cerberus assholes had burst into his apartment and grabbed him. Now as a drug dealer who…occasionally used his own product, Grafin was used to waking up with headaches.

But this, this was a whole other level. Blinking through his blurry vision he was legitimately worried that his head had been split open.

"Ah, motherfucker," he spat. He tried to raise his hands but found that he couldn't, then he remembered.

"Shit!" He'd been tied down and used in some weird experiment! There had been some sort of weird spider looking thing. It had jumped and…and, he couldn't remember what had happened after that.

Grafin coughed. Gods above it felt like there was a stone in his gut. He tried to cough some more and remove it but to no avail. Now that he thought about it he was damn thirsty as well. His coughing intensified, it felt like that damn rock was getting bigger.

That rock suddenly moved, straight up against Grafin's ribcage. He could hear his own bones start to crack as he let out a strangled gurgle of pain.

"What the hell did you people do to me!" he demanded, the rock kicked again, "what the hell did you do to me!"

#

"It seems we are going to have our first birth!" cheered Dufour, "the process has been reported by Major Vilmos as 'chestbursting', in which the infant form of species XX121 breaks out of its host, through the chest. The process is of course fatal for the host."

The Batarian screamed again and a blotch of blood appeared on his shirt.

"Batarian's natural skeletal structure is 22% stronger than the average human's. The young infant is most likely having a bit of difficulty breaking through."

The Batarian test subject screamed as his chest finally broke open in a gout of blood. Out came the tiny worm like infant, screaming its way into the world amidst a pool of blood.

"Excellent! Excellent!" Dufour clapped with glee, "send in the medical drones and retrieve the specimen!"

Two converted LOKI mech's were sent in, they retrieved the wriggling worm and placed it in a specimen container. They returned it inside the lab and handed the container to Dr. Dufour. The infant xenomorph screamed inside at the much larger beings surrounding it defiantly.

"Hello little one, this is your first day. You're designation shall be **Specimen 1** ," Dufour giggled and tapped his finger against the glass container. The infant screeched and flashed its tiny inner jaws at him in response.

It only served to elate Dufour even further.

"We expect great things from you and your siblings."

#

 _ **Twelve Days after Arrival**_

 _ **Bio-Lab 03**_

As he cleaned his glasses, as he often did before beginning his work, **Specimen 0** screeched loudly. Placing his glasses back on his nose, Dufour often found himself awed at just how tenacious species XX121.

Specimen 0, the original Xenomorph brought to Cerberus never ceased struggling against its restraints. Even now, after it had been in incarceration for over a week.

"Hello Specimen 0," spoke Dufour, "today is you're lucky day. We're letting you get some exercise." He turned to his assistants and nodded, "please bring in today's test subject."

The assistant brought up his Omni-tool and entered in a few commands. The door to the lab pneumatically hissed open and in stepped a Turian being led at gunpoint by a Cerberus Trooper. "Fucking humans," the Turian hissed, "what is this?"

The Trooper smacked the alien with the butt of his rifle. "Shut up!" ordered the soldier.

"Now Trooper, you mustn't harm the subject. We need it quite healthy for what is to come." Dufour turned to his assistant again, "Turn the lights off in Specimen 0's habitat, let's see how well it performs in the dark."

"Yes Doctor."

"Now then Trooper, if you'll please."

The Trooper nodded and prodded the Turian in the back with his rifle. "Get moving alien." The Turian resisted at first but eventually relented until the Trooper pushed him into an isolated room before sealing the doors.

"Hey! What am I supposed to do in here?" asked the Turian. A second set of doors opened.

" _Please step through the doors,"_ ordered Dr. Dufour.

With little choice the Turian complied and unknowingly stepped into a monster's den.

"What am I supposed to do here?" he asked.

 _HHHIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS_

"Spirits! What the hell was-ARGH!" The Turian's sentence was fatally interrupted as Specimen 0's barbed tail burst out of his chest.

"Amazing," whispered Dr. Dufour. "No hesitation, no remorse, a perfect organism. Unexpectedly the Turian's body suddenly came sailing out of the dark and collided with the ballistic observation glass. The assistant and even the Trooper startled but Dufour didn't even blink.

The alien's body slid off the glass, leaving a trail of blue blood in the process.

"Tsk tsk tsk, Specimen 0, now you're just being childish." The Doctor turned to his assistant, "activate the gas."

There was an audible rush of wind as the test chamber filled with enough tranquilizer gas to knock out five full grown Krogan. Specimen 0 screeched in rage and threw itself at the observation glass.

The Trooper moved forward, his rifle aimed at the enraged specimen.

"There's no need for that soldier," assured Dufour, "that glass is strong enough to stop an anti-material rifle. Specimen 0 has no chance of breaking it."

He suspected that on some level even Specimen 0 was aware that its efforts were in vain. But still it continued to throw itself at the window until finally the gas took affect and it dropped to the floor.

Dufour smiled and turned to his camera drone.

"And that concludes Experiment 32."

#

 _ **Twenty Six Days after Arrival**_

 _ **Trial-Lab 08**_

"Hello," Dr. Dufour spoke to his ever present camera drone, "This is Experiment 83, this is the first time we shall study Specimen XX121 against multiple armed combatants."

The Doctor stepped towards the edge of the lab's observation deck to allow the drone a better view of the testing grounds.

"This shall be the environment that Specimen 0 will be conducting the exercise."

The environment was in actuality a maze with obstacle course like traps and secrets. Built on the foundation of one of Omega's old gladiatorial pits, it was circular and nearly thirty feet wide in diameter. The maze itself was nearly impossible to navigate if you didn't have VI support or a map.

"The purpose of this exercise is to test species XX121's ability to locate prey and…deal with them. The test subjects in this particular exercise shall be a squad of six alien mercenaries. They are under the impression that we are testing a new combat mech."

The hiss of the door leading into the testing grounds caught Dufour's attention. "Ah! That would be the test subjects." Six aliens armed with assault rifles and shotguns entered the grounds. Three were Batarians, two Vorcha, and one Krogan.

"Release Specimen 0."

The door on the opposite end of the testing grounds opened. Though the lighting was dim, Dufour spotted a flicker of a shadow slip in.

"Specimen 0 has entered the testing grounds Doctor."

"Excellent," Dufour leaned over the command console and activated the testing grounds microphone. "Gentlemen, your task is simple. Defeat our…new security mech and you'll be paid generously, be warned however, if our mech is set to kill intruders and will not spare you."

Below the Krogan, the leader of the mercenary band chuckled. "This is my kind of job." He turned to his men and ordered them to move out.

"And so the test begins," smiled Dufour.

Given the size of the grounds the mercenaries understandably split into two of the Batarians split off with the Krogan while the remaining four eyed alien led the Vorcha. They entered the maze, unaware of the terror they face.

"Specimen 0's status?" the Doctor inquired.

"Moving into the maze and towards the alien's sir."

"Good, very good." Dufour stepped closer to the observation glass, "you are outnumber my little killing machine, how will you proceed?"

#

Darkness, darkness was it's ally.

It used the darkness to hide, to remain unseen as its prey stumbled by obliviously.

Through its senses it saw everything. Even through the walls it saw the forms of its prey. Two groups, each with three forms.

Instinctively it moved towards the one comprised of smaller beings. Like a shadow it swiftly navigated its way through tunnels and along walls until finally it found itself below the unsuspecting prey.

" _Keep moving and watch your corners."_

They did not know what terror lay beneath their very feet.

" _Me think me saw something!"_

The other form hissed. _"Stupid! That nothing! Just you stupid imagination!"_

" _Quite! Both of you!"_

They continued forward and silently it followed beneath them. It watched, it waited, and eventually it saw its opportunity. One of the Vorcha placed its foot too close to the tunnel's grating.

In an instant it pounced forward. It's claws sprang forward and grabbed the victim by the ankle. The Vorcha managed to let out a scream before it pulled him down. The grating was a bit too narrow to truly accommodate the screaming alien's body, but it pulled just a bit harder and the necessary bones broke.

" _Help!"_ The Vorcha managed to scream before he finally disappeared through the grating.

The Vorcha was now in the dark and with it, the Vorcha screamed for only a little longer before it used its claws to rip out the Vorcha's throat.

" _What the hell was that?! Fire! Fire!"_

The Batarian and remaining Vorcha fired their rifles down into the grating. But it was already gone, disappeared into the dark awaiting another chance to strike.

" _Hey! What the hell was that?! That wasn't a fucking mech!"_

" _Nasty! Nasty! Killed brother! Want revenge!"_

 _HHHIIIISSSSSSSSSS!_

" _Nasty! Nasty! I find you! I find you and kill you!"_

" _Wait come back!"_

The Vorcha screamed and charged into the darkness while wildly firing its rifle. _"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kil-ARGH!"_ The Vorcha's final words were ended by its barbed tail puncturing the Vorcha's skull. The Vorcha's body hit the floor with a wet thud.

It slipped away into the darkness just as the Batarian discovered the Vorcha's body.

" _Shit! Shit!"_ the Batarian frantically searched the shadows with his rifle, flashlight dancing from corner to corner trying to find it.

The Batarian heard a scuffle of movement and he immediately fired a sustained burst, hitting nothing. Another scuffle and he fired again.

" _Come out and fight! Come out! Come out right now!"_

The Batarian heard a low hiss and felt a warm breath touch the back of his neck.

Mech's didn't breath.

A pair of black claws wrapped around his throat and dug out a sizable chunk of meat. The Batarian died gurgling his own blood.

#

"Fascinating," nodded Dufour, "hypothesis: without a hive, without a queen, species XX121 has reverted strictly to hunting instincts. So far not attempts have been made by Specimen 0 to subdue the mercenaries, instead it moves only to kill."

Dufour paused and watched Specimen 0's tracking signal move across the holo-map of the test site towards the three remaining mercenaries.

"I am curious to see how it handles this next test. Turn on the lights."

#

All of a sudden the darkness was gone, its ally had abandoned it. Lights across the training ground had suddenly appeared, most were dim at best but they still banished its most valuable advantage.

This could not be allowed to continue. It saw its prey father ahead and it knew that the prey always gravitated towards the light. It would move to correct this.

#

If it was possible, Dufour's smile somehow became even wider than it had already been. One by one the lights scattered across the training grounds began to flicker out.

"Interesting, it knows that darkness is its ally. It's purposefully taking down the lights. Those mercenaries will be walking into a dark zone."

#

Crux and his men had taken this job because it had seemed like easy credits. Now three of his men weren't responding and judging by the sounds he heard he they wouldn't be responding to anything any time soon.

On one hand, fewer splits to the payoff. On the other hand, this job was starting to be more trouble than it was worth.

The lights had suddenly come on but now, which made him feel a little more comfortable but now they were heading into an area where there weren't as many.

"Flashlights on," he ordered.

All three mercenaries activated the lights strapped to their weapons.

"Keep it tight, you see anything you shoot it."

Though the dark was back it wasn't as bad as it was before and Crux found his eyes adjusting better to the low light. Now it was just a matter of finding this stupid mech and-.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Crux whipped around just in time to see one of the Batarians get dragged over the maze wall, his rifle firing uncontrolled into the air.

"Holy shit! This job is fucked!" The last Batarian's voice quivered. "I'm getting the fuck out of here!"

"Wait don't-!" Too late, the Batarian sprinted off back the way they'd come. It took only a few moments before Crux heard his screams.

He was alone now.

"Damn it! Whatever you are! You aren't killing me! You hear me? You're aren't going to kill me!"

 _HHHHIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!_

Without warning a blur of black collided into Crux. Even with all his Krogan bulk, Crux was sent sprawling to the floor. Something large and screeching was digging its claws into his face.

He tried to bring up his shotgun but he had lost it in all the chaos. That was okay, he was a Krogan, his fists were much deadlier.

With all the strength he could muster Crux landed a strike on his attack and sent the screeching thing tumbling away. Blood was dribbling down his face, seeping into his eyes, but now he saw his enemy.

It was some sort of bug, but not like the Rachnai, no this thing was vaguely humanoid and possessed no apparent eyes. Its body structure seemed like an unholy cross between organic and mechanical.

That tail on its back looked dangerous and its claws were soaked in blood. Crux didn't have his shotgun on him, it looked like things were headed towards a melee finish.

The thing hissed at him through silvery teeth.

"Come on! Bring it!"

 _HHHIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS!_

Like a proper Krogan, Crux charged head first with the intent to pummel his opponent into a thin gooey paste. Few beings in the galaxy could match a full grown Krogan's strength in combat, this creature was not one of them.

But it didn't need to. It had speed and pure primal ferocity on its side.

Like a black bullet it pounced forward and tore Crux right off the ground. The Krogan was now flat on his back and Specimen 0 was on top. Before the Krogan could even try to retaliate, Specimen 0 became a frenzy of claws and teeth.

Its claws ripped through Crux's armor like it was paper and its inner teeth easily tore through the Krogan's hardened crest. Before long, Crux the Krogan mercenary was just another dead piece of meat lying on the floor.

With all its enemies eliminated Specimen 0 let loose an ear piercing screech.

Its victory was the Hive's victory.

#

The screech did not go unheard.

Not far away Specimen 0's voice carried itself into the containment units of its brothers and sisters. They heard their sibling and they responded with voices of their own. Every specimen, every xenomorph suddenly began to struggle against their restraints and shriek at the top of their lungs.

Their victory was the Hive's victory.

They were the Hive and they would have victory.

#

"Sir! We're getting reports from all the bio-labs. The specimens, they've become…restless."

"Amazing, even from here they can hear your voice. Administer gas sedatives immediately, wouldn't want our little friend to think we're going soft."

#

 _ **Forty Eight Days after Arrival**_

 _ **Bio-Lab 03**_

Dr. Dufour stared at the puddle of liquid blue metal on the floor of the testing chamber with disdain. He ordered his assistants to salvage the remains then turned to his camera drone to record the events.

"As with all previous experiments involving the grafting of Reaper technology to species XX121, Experiment 98 is a failure. The reason for this is quite clear. The integration of Reaper technology to a biological organism involves a bonding between the organism and technology on a near cellular level."

"The bones are reinforced, the tissue is enhanced, the brain is rewired, and the blood…the blood is used to continue the circulation of energy. However it is in the blood that the problem lies. Species XX121's blood has displayed amazing corrosive properties. Just a single drop managed to melt its way through three decks of 5 foot thick reinforced metal."

"I fear that I must soon conclude that the control of Species XX121 through the use of Reaper technology is…impossible. It seems the only thing that can control Species XX121 is the Hive Queen." The Doctor stared at his hands for a few moments, his face synonymous with defeat. But then his brows furrowed and his mind began to work. "Yes…" He began, "yes…only a Queen can control the Hive. Only a Queen."

#

 _Seventy Eight Days after Arrival_

 _Omega E-Deck, Slums District_

Major Vilmos sat in the Command Shuttle watching the live feeds coming from his men. Usually Vilmos liked to lead from the front lines but for this particular operation he was delegated to TOC duty.

Thankfully Vilmos's squad was the best of the best, they were the Shadow Hounds. Cerberus's elite team sent in to deal with problems the average Spec Ops soldier could not.

Their ops were darker than black. None of the operatives even knew each other's names, just each other's given designations. As leader of the team, Vilmos was **Shadow Lead**.

"This is Shadow Lead," he spoke into the Team Com, "everyone in position?"

" _This is_ _ **Shadow Eleven**_ _, I'm in position over the target area and have overwatch,"_ spoke the Shadow Hound's designated sniper.

" _This is_ _ **Shadow One,**_ _Alpha Team is in position near the loading dock, ready for your go to breach,"_ spoke the Shadow Hound's second in command.

" _This is_ _ **Shadow Two**_ _, Beta Team is in position at the front entrance, ready on your go Shadow Lead."_

"Alright people, thermal imaging shows that our friends are inside this slaughter house. We took down one already, but this'll be twice as hard. Remember, your armor will hid your heat signatures but intelligence suggests that the targets can see in spectrums beyond heat."

Vilmos paused for a moment and cursed for the second time that he was unable to lead things from the front.

"Quiet breach on my mark, ready? Three…two…one…mark!"

Silently the Shadow Hounds entered the slaughter house.

"Alpha Team, you are closing in on the targets. They should be ten meters from your current position."

" _This is Shadow One, I see them._ _ **Shadow Three**_ _and_ _ **Shadow Five**_ _, flank left._ _ **Shadow Seven**_ _and_ _ **Nine**_ _flank right."_

" _This is Shadow Two, we have eyes on the targets. Jesus,"_ she said, _"these fuckers are big, what the hell are they doing?"_

" _Looks like they're…having lunch?"_ suggested **Shadow Four**.

"Hey! Focus people," Vilmos barked, "we have a job to do, let's get it done and then you can stare at the ugly aliens."

" _Yes sir!"_ said Shadow Two, _"_ _ **Shadow Four**_ _and_ _ **Shadow Six**_ _, stay with me. We'll provide high ground overwatch._ _ **Shadow Eight**_ _and_ _ **Shadow Ten**_ _, you two head down those stairs."_

The targets were surrounded, now it was time to put their plan into action.

"Alright let's do this. Beta team, time to flush them out…open fire."

" _Roger, engaging!"_

Vilmos saw and heard Beta team open fire on the three targets. The "Hunters" were startled and moved predictably. As expected they were unused to being the ones ambushed and as a result ran to break Beta team's lines of fire where they would undoubtedly cloak and return to hunt down their attackers from the shadows.

Just one problem, they were running right into Alpha Team.

"Alpha, the targets are rabbiting your way. Engage at will."

" _Roger that Shadow Lead, Open Fire!"_

Vilmos heard a primal roar of defiance as Alpha Team sprung the trap.

" _Shit they won't go down!"_ cried Shadow Five,

" _Beta team, move to assist Alpha. The targets aren't going down!"_

" _Keep firing!"_ ordered Shadow One, _"Keep firing!"_

" _Oh Jesus! No-ARGH!"_

" _Shadow Five is down! Repeat! Shadow Five is down!"_

"Keep up the pressure people! Do not let them get away! Drive them out into the open! Shadow Eleven, get ready to provide sniper support!"

" _Roger, preparing to fire."_

Vilmos heard another roar, this one of distress.

" _We got one! Repeat one of the targets is down!"_ Shadow One reported,

"Good, put two in its chest just to be sure then continue on the others!"

From the helmet feed Vilmos saw Shadow One carry fire twice into the fallen Hunter's chest. _"Alright people let's keep the pressure on them-SHIT!"_

Vilmos watched as an invisible shimmer suddenly skewered Shadow One. The man was lifted right off the floor and tossed away as though he were nothing more than a rag doll.

" _This is Shadow Three! Shadow One is down! Repeat, Alpha Team leader is down. Shadow Lead, how-GRAH!"_

Shadow Three looked down to see a pair of blades stick out of his chest.

"God damnit!" cursed Vilmos, though he knew he shouldn't expect any less from these targets. "All Shadow Hounds, you are now cleared for use of explosives! Repeat, grenades and concussive rounds are now authorized!"

" _Roger that!"_ said Shadow Two, _"Beta team, Concussive volley!"_

Every soldier in Beta Team fired off a single high-powered explosive round. One of the Hunters managed to leap out of the volley but the other was caught in the volley of explosions.

But where a human or even a Krogan would have succumbed, the Hunter kept going though it was missing one arm now. That hardly seem to matter to it however, it simply roared and charged forward waving its blade like a mad man.

" _Look out!"_ warned Shadow Two,

Too late the one armed Hunter tossed its weapon. The Shadow hounds ducked and allowed the deadly weapon to sail over their heads, but then the Hunter was upon them. With its one remaining hand it grabbed Shadow Ten.

" _Help!"_ he cried out, _"It's got me! It's got me!"_

" _Shoot it!"_

"No!"

Beta team opened fire and the Hunter tossed Shadow Ten into their bullets. The Cerberus agent was shredded to pieces while the Hunter slipped away in the confusion.

" _Shit! Shadow Ten is dead!"_

" _Targets are making a break for the exit!"_

"Shit! Shadow Eleven, you're about to be busy!"

" _Acknowledged,"_ the sniper replied coolie.

Vilmos grabbed his helmet, slid it on, and sealed it with a satisfying hiss. "All Shadow Hound operatives be advised. Shadow Lead is entering the field."

The two remaining Hunters exited the slaughter house by smashing through a window, telegraphing their position to the Shadow Hound's sniper.

" _I have the targets in sight."_

" _Fire at will!"_

Vilmos heard the unmistakable _CRACK_ of Shadow Eleven's Widow rifle, followed by a dismayed roar. Rushing out of the Command vehicle he almost immediately saw the targets.

The injured one armed one had been the victim of Shadow Eleven's first shot. Vilmos heard another booming report from the rifle. Unfortunately the last remaining Hunter had moved at the last possible second, causing the round to wing it in the shoulder.

Now aware of the sniper, the Hunter activated his plasma cannon and fired it at Shadow Eleven's position.

" _Shit!"_ Vilmos heard Shadow Eleven say.

There was no time to check if the sniper was still alive. Vilmos had to make sure the mission was a success.

"CROSS! Activate the M-52!"

" _Activating M-52"_

CROSS was Vilmos's onboard VI. One of the perks of being part of the Shadow Hounds was that you got all the best toys. But with all that fancy tech came the burden of being able to actually run all of it. Most of Vilmos's armor systems and weapons could be run manually but with an onboard VI to help them run, Vilmos could use all of them with a mere command.

The M-52 was one of those fancy toys. It was a brand new dual purpose weapons system. Unlike regular weapons, the M-52 was mounted onto Vilmos's forearm so that he could never lose it. The M-52 capitalized on weapon collapsing technology.

Up until now collapsing technology had simply been a cool gimmick that had allowed soldiers to fit more weapons onto their bodies without the added problem of having a barrel or stock accidentally hit a door way during a breach maneuver.

The M-52 took it to the next level. In addition to being a fully functional arm mounted assault rifle, it utilized collapsing technology to turn itself into a fully functional arm mounted rapid fire grenade launcher.

Vilmos made fully use of both modes.

With CROSS assisting his aim, Vilmos sighted down the Hunter and fired a sustained burst of mass accelerator rounds. The bullets were dead on but as always the Hunter proved its species durability by simply shrugging off the round and uttering a challenging roar at the Shadow Hound.

It was a challenge Vilmos was all too eager to accept.

With a roar of his own he charged the Hunter, it must have been surprised because instead of charging as well it stood its ground. Undoubtedly it wondered how a human could be so bold as to believe he could survive a close-quarters engagement.

Vilmos was prepared for that as well. With his free hand he brandished a standard issue Humbler Stun Baton capable of delivering 60,000 volts into a target. Against a regular man it was enough to cause temporary paralysis.

The Hunter took a fully charged jab right in the gut. It was like striking a brick wall but Vilmos kept the device jammed against the Hunter's flesh. It roared in pain and surprise, with blinding speed it back handed Vilmos and sent him tumbling to the ground.

Now the Hunter was wary of the human.

Vilmos stood up and spat a glob of blood onto the deck. "Is that the hardest you can hit?" he asked. He wasn't sure if the Hunter could understand English or not, but it seemed to understand the meaning in Vilmos's words.

From its wrist a pair of jagged razor sharp blades unsheathed themselves.

Vilmos lowered his baton and took aim with the M-52.

Close quarters combat with a prepared Hunter was nearly the equivalent to suicide. Vilmos had gotten that one hit in because the Hunter had been unprepared. Now however he needed to play it safe. He fired a sustained stream of mass accelerator rounds at the Hunter.

The Hunter pounced out of the way and sprinted towards Vilmos's left. The Cerberus Major kept up his fire and retreated to the right as he did. Seeing that the assault rifle wasn't doing the job, Vilmos ordered CROSS to switch the M-52 to Grenade Launcher mode.

The transition took only 8 seconds.

Vilmos fired two HE rounds at the Hunter, the first was dodged the second appeared to land at the Hunter's feet, consuming it in a fiery explosion. No luck, a second later the Hunter came roaring out of the flames, wrist blades drawn back for a killing strike.

On pure reflexive instinct, Vilmos threw himself back just far enough so that the Hunter's Wrist blades only gouged deep cuts into his armor and not his flesh. As he fell backwards Vilmos struck out with his baton and scored a strong hit to the Hunter's temple.

The voltage of the weapon coupled with the area of the strike was enough to daze even the Hunter. With his opponent stunned, Vilmos switched his grenades to Cryo. He fired one, catching the Hunter square in the chest.

The shell released an explosion of fast acting cryogenic mist. The Hunter roared in surprise as its limbs gradually succumbed to the frost. But as always the Hunter refused to give up.

With a roar and a roll of its shoulders the Hunter broke off the ice and charged.

"Shit!" cursed Vilmos,

" _Shadow lead get down!"_

Vilmos hit the deck just as the remaining six members of Alpha and Beta opened fire. Not even the Hunter could stand under that kind of fire power. Green blood erupted from its chest as round after struck its body.

"Cease fire!" Ordered Vilmos,

All at once the sound of gunfire died out and it was quiet. The Hunter was on its knees now, just barely alive.

Cautiously Vilmos edged his way towards the target.

"Keep me covered," he ordered. The Shadow Hounds moved to surround the Hunter.

Vilmos was now standing above the Hunter. With what little strength it had left it used to look up at him. Vilmos stuck the end of his baton under the Hunter's chin.

"You've never hunted anything like us before."

He activated his baton and the Hunter's world went dark.

#

 _ **Seventy Nine Days after Arrival**_

 _ **Bio-Lab 04**_

"Hello!" Dr. Dufour spoke into his faithful camera drone, "Today is a very special day! A new species has been discovered, very advanced and very hostile! Oh I can't wait to see what it is capable of."

Dufour turned away from his drone and walked towards the specimen currently being restrained to a medical gurney meant for a Krogan.

"Now then, my big ugly friend. Shall we find out what makes you and your kind tick?"

#

 _ **Eighty Five Days after Arrival**_

 _ **Omega Deck B – Generator Room A7**_

" _Target on the move! Target on the move!"_

"After it Shadow Hounds! Go! Go! Go!"

A new Hunter had arrived in Omega and it had made quite a mess in the five days it had spent here. As expected the Shadow Hounds had been deployed to deal with the situation. They had spent the last eight hours chasing it through out Omega and lost Shadow Six and the new Shadow Five.

Now they finally had it corned in one of Omega's generators. The only way it was getting out of here was through them.

The catwalks beneath them shuddered under the weight of the Hunter and Shadow Hound.

"Shadow Eleven, do you have visual on the target?"

" _Roger Shadow Lead, I've got him."_

"Take the shot!"

Vilmos heard the familiar report of Shadow Eleven's rifle and the Hunter ahead of them suddenly stumbled as a mass accelerator round tore through its abdomen.

"Good effect Eleven, keep on him but do not fire. We've got this."

" _Roger Shadow lead, good hunting."_

Vilmos whipped out his stun baton. To his side Shadow One and Shadow Two, both possessing Phantom class training, unsheathed their swords.

"Rules of engagement Shadow Lead?" asked Shadow One,

"Capture if possible but put down the bastard with extreme prejudice if it comes to it."

Shadow One nodded. "Copy Shadow Lead," he said.

"Look!" Shadow Two pointed. The Hunter had come to a complete step in front of one of the generators. "He's got nowhere left to run," she said hungrily.

"You know the drill Shadow Hounds, surround it!"

Vilmos and Shadow One and Two moved to engage.

Meanwhile Shadow Three and Four, flanked it with heavy duty Cerberus Guardian shields.

Seeing that it was surrounded, the Hunter activated its telescopic spear. It lunged out with a wide sweeping strike. Vilmos, One, and Two were fast enough to leap back out of its way, but Three and Four took the strike head on with their shields.

Even though the shields held, the sheer force behind the Hunter's strike was enough to put both Shadow Hounds flat on their back.

"Engage! Engage!" Vilmos Ordered.

One and Two moved forward, their deadly monomolecular blades flashing under the dim Omega light. The Predator matched their blades with his own. It blocked both their initial strikes then struck Shadow Two with a backhand strong enough to send her reeling against the catwalk rails.

One fired at it with his pistol. The Hunter accepted the bullets, shrugging them off like a minor irritation, and then smacked the weapon out of Shadow One's hand with its spear, before grabbing the man by the throat and slamming him into the catwalk.

Before the Hunter could finish off the Hounds, Vilmos intercepted it with his baton. He landed a light strike to its ribs then shot it twice in the foot with the M-52.

The Hunter barely registered the damage to its limbs and used its injured foot to deliver a bone cracking kick to Vilmos's chest.

Wind rushed out of Major's lungs as he landed on the catwalk with an audible rattle. There was no doubt in his mind that if it had not been for his armor, the Hunter would have caved his chest with that kick.

Even after seeing it before, Vilmos still marveled at the Hunter's abilities. It was the perfect combination of speed and strength.

Strong as a Krogan but just as quick and agile as a Drell, the perfect Predator.

It was then that Shadow Eight, Nine and Ten arrived. They leveled their rifles at the Hunter and opened fire with a volley of cryo rounds.

The frost bullets struck the Hunter dead on and frost immediately began to develop along the affected areas. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to stop the Hunter.

Shrugging off the ice it charged the Cerberus troopers. It would have torn them apart had Shadow Two not suddenly thrust her sword through the back of its knee.

The Hunter moved to retaliated but then Shadow One came up from behind and ran it through with his sword. The Hunter roared defiantly, it attempted to stand but even it could not bear so many injuries and continue on.

Vilmos stood back up. As he moved to examine the Hunter, he noticed it weakly tapping at the buttons on its wrist gauntlet. Without hesitation Vilmos put two rounds into the gauntlet.

"We'll have none of that now." Cerberus had discovered early on, the miniature nuke each Hunter wore on their wrist. Disabling it was a top priority so that the Hunters didn't take them out along with itself.

The Hunter glared at Vilmos.

"You aren't getting off that easy ugly."

It growled at him. Unexpectedly it leapt back to its feet.

"Look out! It's still active!"

The Hunter's shoulder cannon sprang to life and the red targeting laser on its mask lit up. At this range it could have taken out any one of the Shadow Hounds. Instead it turned its cannon upon the generators and let loose a single bolt of plasma before Shadow Eleven shot it in the heart.

" _Hunter down sir!"_ the sniper reported.

"Good work," said Vilmos, "the Doc is going to be pissed we didn't get it alive but as long as-"

" _Shadow Lead! Shadow Lead come in!"_

" _Shadow Lead to Shadow Control, this is Shadow Lead, how copy?"_

" _Shadow Lead, you and your team need to get back here now! Over!"_

Vilmos furrowed his brows in confusion. _"Shadow Control, clarify? Over."_

" _Species XX121 has broken free! Repeat the bugs are loose!"_

#

 _ **10 minutes ago**_

 _ **Bio-Lab 03**_

"Hello Zero, you did not think I had forgotten about you did you?"

It raised its head to "stare" at the human in front of it.

"Don't worry, just because I have something new to play with, doesn't mean I will forget about you or your siblings. Specimen 1, the one born from a Batarian, performed quite well yesterday in the training grounds. Not quite as well as you though."

It hissed at the annoying human, always spouting out words and mocking it.

"You know, I think you've grown Zero."

Dufour brought up his Omni-tool and performed a quick scan. "Yes! Yes you have! Fascinating! You are exactly 10% larger than you were when you arrived on the station. A sign of metamorphosis perhaps?"

 _HHHHIIISSSSSSSS_

"I wonder, why have these Hunters come to Omega? If it were merely for the sport there would have been reports years ago. No…perhaps it is you Zero?" Dufour placed a hand on its phallic dome and softly caressed it. "Are they here for you?"

"Sir, we're ready to begin the testing," said an assistant.

"Yes of course, begin-", Dufour received a chirp on his Omni-tool, "yes? What is it?"

" _Sir, the Shadow Hounds have secured another Hunter. General Petrovsky requests that you join the cleanup team to provide on sight examination."_

"Ah! Another one, brilliant! Is it alive?"

" _Unfortunately not sir."_

"Hmm…a shame. Very well, inform the General I shall be there shortly." Dufour hung up the call and instructed the assistant to continue the testing without him. "Another time Zero, another time."

The Doctor exited the lab and the assistant went about beginning the tests.

"Whacko, I don't know what he sees in you," said the assistant, "nothing more than a big ugly-"

Suddenly the room and its inhabitabts were placed into complete darkness.

"What the-! What happened to the lights?!"

" **Security Alert. Power failure has occurred in this sector. Please remain calm."**

"Power failure? What could have caused-"

 _HHHHIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS_

The assistant turned to Specimen Zero and watched in horror as the clamps keeping it restrained were suddenly thrown off.

"Oh no! No! No! No! No! Stay back!"

#

It was free.

The human was the first victim of that freedom and there would be many more. It sensed its siblings nearby, its instincts screamed at it to free them.

It knew that more humans would come and that it had no hope to kill them all alone. The safety of the Hive had to come first.

It leapt into the ventilation system and followed the scent of its siblings.

" **All security staff are required to report to their posts. This is not a drill."**

It navigated the ventilation system with speed and soon it discovered its siblings bellow. The humans in their haste to escape had simply left them there with no guard.

It dropped down from the ceiling and was greeted by the shrieks of its siblings. It knew that the human's machines were what held them in place. It did not know why it had been freed and they had not been. But that did not matter now.

It destroyed the human's machines.

It freed its siblings.

They listened to its commands and followed it, escaping the human's facility and disappearing deep into the depths of the station.

This was not home.

This was not the Hive.

But soon it would be.

 **End**

 **Author's Note:**

 **And that is the prologue for my new story AVP: Omega.**

 **I'm sorry that it took so long to get to you guys but I really wanted to do this right. I can't guarantee anything in the way of when chapters will be posted but I will try my best to get them to you.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you'll put this story on alert so you can read each chapter as soon as I post them.**

 **Just a few things I'd like to touch on.**

 **Whenever I wrote from the perspective of the Specimen 0, you might have noticed that I always referred to itself as "It". That is because technically Xenomorphs have no gender, sure you could call them all female due to the similarities between the alien and bees but that would be incorrect since no aliens beyond the queen actually have the female organ.**

 **Yeah, Cerberus is taking down Predators. You might be wondering, how is that possible? It will be explained later on, just wait for me to update the story.**

 **Vilmos is back! You might remember Vilmos from my other story Aliens: Bane of the Reapers. At first he was just a random Cerberus officer I made up for the sake of the story. But as time went on he kind of grew on me. Now in this story he is a full-fledged evil badass.**

 **That's all for now.**

 **Please leave a review telling me what you thought and favorite the story!**


	2. Chapter 1: It's Time

**Chapter 1**

 **It's Time**

 _ **6 Months after Arrival**_

 _ **SSV Normandy SR2 – Command Deck - Combat Information Center**_

It was morning, or what passed for morning when you lived on a stealth warship.

Every morning Commander Jane Shepard did the same thing she always did. She got up, took a quick shower, ate breakfast, and opened her private terminal to check her messages. Usually it would be filled with unimportant messages such as news updates, spam, subscriptions, and requests for sponsorships.

Occasionally however something interesting and maybe even important would pop up, like a request from the Alliance or an update from one of Shepard's many friends.

As she scrolled through this morning's messages while sipping a wonderful cup of black caffeine, one particular message caught her eye.

The sender: Aria T'Loak, the infamous Asari crime boss of the Terminus systems and Queen of Omega.

The subject: "It's Time".

Aria did always love to be dramatic.

Shepard opened the message and read.

" _Shepard, I'm finally ready. It's taken nearly a year and a half of preparation and scraping by but I'm finally ready to take back what's mine. If you want to destroy what remains of Cerberus, and I know you do, come to Dock 42 on the Citadel. We'll discuss retaking Omega and the end of Cerberus. A Batarian named Bray will be waiting."_

A curious smile spread itself across Shepard's lips.

"EDI!" she called out,

" _Yes Commander?"_

"Tell Joker to set course for the Citadel."

#

 **Citadel – Dock 42**

After docking the Normandy and disembarking on to the station herself, Shepard immediately noticed that the dock was conspicuously devoid of life. No doubt Aria had pulled some strings to empty it for their meeting.

The Asari was smart but also paranoid. Then again when you're the ruler of Omega being both was basically a requirement.

Seeing no Batarians, or anyone at all for that matter, Shepard decided to move towards the exit. Upon walking through the door she discovered an elderly looking Batarian leaning against the wall.

"You Bray?" she asked,

The Batarian dropped the cigarette it had been smoking and stamped it out before turning to face the Commander. "Ah, the great Commander Shepard. Heh, and me without my autograph book," he said smugly.

Given what Shepard had done to the Batarian's home system she honestly couldn't fault them for not liking her. Still, that didn't mean she had to put up with their sass.

"Save it," she shot back humorlessly, "just take me to Aria."

Bray frowned but nodded. "Follow me."

The two walked through the door to the dock's security checkpoint. As she passed through the scanning station Shepard noted that C-Sec guards that would normally be manning the station were absent as well.

"So where is she?" asked Shepard.

Bray crossed his arms and Shepard heard the unmistakable sound of an aircar's thrusters powering up. From behind the Batarian a Kephess Phantom, an expensive sports aircar that cost upwards of 1 million credits, rose up from beneath the checkpoint to hover at their level.

The Phantom's door lifted revealing a Batarian pilot and Aria sitting in the back seat.

"Shepard," she greeted curtly.

Bray nodded for Shepard to get in the air.

"Pretty dramatic Aria, did you rent it just for the occasion?" Shepard asked as she placed herself in the back next to Aria while Bray sat shotgun.

"There are too many eyes and ears in Purgatory," the Asari replied. Shepard snorted, if she were to hold a secret meeting in a club, the inability to hear one another would have been a little higher on her list.

The driver shut the doors and entered in a preprogramed route into the car's dashboard console. No doubt they were going to just loop around the docks over and over until the meeting was over. It was an easy way to avoid listening devices.

"So we're going to talk about retaking Omega?"

Aria's reply was a cool as ice. "We're going to be talking about war, Shepard. It's something you're quite familiar with correct?"

Shepard raised an inquisitive brow.

Aria leaned back in her seat and began. "Cerberus controlling Omega has seriously bolstered their resources and reach. Since taking it from me, they've spread through the Terminus. Surely you and the Alliance have noticed."

Aria was trying to make this about Shepard. It was a familiar tactic, get the opposite party invested, and make them see the benefit in taking part. But Shepard wasn't fooled, she saw the play for what it was, and she was fairly certain Aria knew that she knew.

"Cut to the chase," said Shepard, "what's your plan?"

"Kick them out," Aria replied tactlessly. From her jacket the Asari produced a datapad and began typing away, "I've amassed a fleet of merc ships. We're going to punch through Cerberus lines and invade." The Crime lord turned back to Shepard, "once we're on Omega, it going to be a ground war. That's why I want you."

Shepard crossed her arms. "Why me specifically?"

"I only accept the best," Aria replied without missing a beat. She handed Shepard the datapad, now displaying a man wearing Cerberus colors with a full beard and military haircut. His posturing and unwavering gaze spoke of a man of military experience.

"The leader of the Cerberus occupation," explained Aria, "General Oleg Petrovsky. He's the one who…" the crime boss paused to glare venomously at the picture.

"…who ousted me," she finished.

"Alliance Intelligence has been talking about him. Is it true he's taken over Cerberus now that the Illusive Man is dead?"

"I'm the wrong person to be asking about that," admitted Aria, "but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that at the very least he controls Cerberus's military. Whether or not he's the leader of it all is anyone's guess."

Shepard grunted in agreement. "What else do you know about him?"

"Petrovsky was the Illusive Man's top military strategist. All those colonies Cerberus hit during the war? His plan and his tactics."

Shepard's fingers tightened around the datapad. During the Reaper War Cerberus had, unsurprisingly, been a real thorn in her well-toned ass. Instead of allying with the Alliance and Citadel like any rational person would have done, Cerberus took the war as a chance to increase its own power.

Of course by the end of it all it had been discovered that the Illusive Man himself had been unknowingly indoctrinated by the Reapers to weaken Citadel and Alliance forces.

To know that this man, General Petrovsky, had helped orchestrate it all was akin to finding justice for a lot of innocent colonists.

"You probably already know from fighting his soldiers, he's a merciless bastard."

Shepard handed Aria the pad back. "Some might say that about you."

Aria bent forward and stared Shepard straight in her eyes. "Shepard," she began, "I know my reputation. I know I'm hated. I ruled Omega with an iron fist." Her voice began to escalate, "but the people were free! Their lives were theirs. I preserved that!"

"This man…" she turned to glare at Petrovsky's image once more, "…took all that away and he is going to pay!"

The crime boss leaned back into her seat and dropped the datapad back in Shepard's lap. "If the prospect of finally finishing Cerberus off isn't enough for you know that I intend to compensate you generously for your services."

Shepard frowned. "I'm not one of your mercs Aria, let's be clear on that."

"I respect you too much to think of you as just another hired gun Shepard," replied Aria, "but I pay my debts. Keep what I give you or…give it to the reconstruction efforts, once it's yours you can do whatever you want with it."

Though she gave nothing away, that last part had caught Shepard's attention. The Reaper war had definitely left its scars on all of the galaxy. Slowly they were rebuilding but reconstruction was going slow.

"Alright, I'm in," said Shepard, "one condition though."

Now it was Aria's turn to raise a brow, "and what would that be?"

"I want to bring in my own team. No offense to your mercs but I've fought them before and to be honest…I wasn't impressed."

Aria frowned.

"I only accept the best," she repeated.

"So do I," said Shepard.

A tense silence filled the aircar's cabinet until finally Aria nodded. "Very well, I won't say no to a few extra guns, and if you think you'll need them then I see no reason to bicker about it." Aria leaned forward and nodded for the pilot to land.

"Great, when and where?"

The aircar slowed to a stop and ascended up to the same bridge it had picked Shepard off of. "Bray will provide coordinates to my fleet, we leave in 24 hours. You have until then to assemble your team."

Shepard nodded. The aircar doors popped open and Bray stepped out and Shepard followed.

"See you there Aria."

The crime lord gave no reply as the doors sealed back close and the aircar flew off.

Bray brought up his Omni-tool and produced an orange holographic ring. He held it out towards Shepard who accepted it with her own Omi-tool. "The fleet is hidden in the system provided in that packet. Send a signal through the provided frequency so we don't accidentally blow you into dust when you arrive."

Shepard let out a humorless laugh. "Much appreciated."

"Aria and I will meet you on the command ship."

Shepard nodded and moved towards the exit.

"Heh. Can't wait to see what all the fuss is about," Bray called after her. She ignored it and brought up her Omni-tool

It was time to look up some old friends.

#

 _ **Citadel –Level 28 – Slums**_

Shepard took one look at the bar and knew she'd arrived in the right place. The _**"Devil's Delight"**_ was a bar that practically screamed _I'm full of criminals! Please come in if you'd like to get into a cliché bar shoot out!_

Luckily Shepard had come armed, plus with a reputation like hers there was little chance anyone would want to start anything.

The bar's front entrance slid open upon detecting her presence and Shepard strode into a room full of…dead bodies. Not the first time she'd done so but usually the setting wasn't a bar.

Thankfully the one person she wanted alive was calmly sitting at the bar smoking a fat cigar.

Shepard took a seat next to him. "Long time no see Zaeed."

"Hey Shepard," the one-eyed mercenary took a puff of his cigar, "yeah, long time no-"

"Ugh, my-"

Zaeed casually whipped out his side arm and put two rounds into the Krogan at his feet.

"I must be getting old," muttered the elderly mercenary.

"I hope that wasn't anyone important," said Shepard. She looked around at the corpses of various species strewn around the room, all with bullet holes perforating some part of their body. "Who are all these guys anyway?"

"This here's the Threshers, local gang that decided to get too uppity for its own good. This cunt here…" Zaeed kicked the Krogan he'd just shot dead, "…was their leader, Konk I think his name was or something starting with a K."

"So they're a job?" asked Shepard.

Zaeed chomped down on his cigar and nodded.

"Yup, from C-Sec if you can believe it" he said. The elderly merc then reached over the bar and pulled out a tall bottle of blue liquid and two glasses.

"C-Sec? Hired you?"

"Times being what they are, yeah, they did."

He poured the liquid into both of them and pushed one towards her. Shepard accepted the drink with a nod and together they downed their glasses.

"So," Zaeed said as he poured himself another glass, "what's the great Commander Shepard want from an old merc like me? Aren't you too famous to be seen with a bad apple like me?"

"I've got a job and I thought you might be interested."

Zaeed took out his cigar and blew out a stream of smoke. "I might be, what is it?"

"Aria and I are going to take back Omega, I thought you might like to join us in kicking Cerberus out."

A smile spread across Zaeed's face revealing a few silver teeth. "Omega, god I miss that pisshole. It's about damn time somebody did something about Cerberus. Count me in."

Shepard smiled as well. "Great, report to the Normandy once you've finished here. We'll discuss payment once you're onboard."

Zaeed downed his glass and chuckled heartily. "No need for that Commander, I'll do this one free of charge.

Shepard nearly choked. "Free? Since when are you so charitable?"

"Let's just put this one down to: for old times sake."

Her smile spread and she held out her hand. "For old times sake," she said.

Zaeed took it and shook.

"So who else are you bringing along?"

#

 _Citadel – Presidium_

It was honestly jarring, how different the Citadel Presidium felt compared to the lower levels. Whereas everything down there was dark and lit only by the plethora of epileptic inducing neon lights of clubs and billboards, the Presidium's lighting system was bright enough to fool you into believing that it was natural.

The most jarring part of it was the Turian she was here to meet wasn't all that different from Zaeed. A bit less bloodthirsty maybe, but other than that there wasn't all that much separation between the two.

Shepard found her target leaning against the rails of the pool for the Krogan Memorial statue. Deciding not to announce herself, she walked right up beside him.

"You know," the Turian began, "I come here every so often, to stare at that big old hunk of rock memorializing the Rachnai Wars."

Shepard played along. "Is that so?" she asked.

"Yup," he replied, "and no matter how many times I think about it, I still can't figure it out."

"Figure out what?"

"How the hells did Grunt manage to climb on top of it? I mean he was drunk for Spirits sake!"

A silent paused followed. Until finally Shepard could keep it in no longer and let loose a loud and uncontrollable laugh. The Turian, Garrus Vakarian, followed soon after.

"I sometimes wonder that myself," admitted Shepard as she vainly tried to regain control whilst wiping the tears from her eyes.

With the pleasantries out of the way the human and Turian clasped one another's forearms and shook.

"It's damn good to see you again Garrus."

"Likewise Shepard."

The two released their link and returned to leaning against the rails.

"So what's this all about?" asked the Turian.

Shepard hesitated for a moment.

Omega was a bit of a sore subject for Garrus. A few years back the Turian had made a name for himself among the residents of the space station as a vigilante named: Archangel. In time Archangel formed a team who shared in his belief that Omega needed to be cleaned up. Unfortunately they were one day betrayed by one of their own and the entire team was killed by an alliance of mercenary groups fed up with Archangel's actions.

Garrus had taken the death of his team hard. Even now after all these years he wasn't completely over it.

"It's about Omega," Shepard finally said.

The word seemed to startle the Turian. "What about it?" he asked.

"Aria is putting together a fleet to take it back from Cerberus and I'm going with her." Shepard waited to see Garrus's reaction. When he said nothing she continued on, "Zaeed is coming too, as my back up. I know that you and Omega have…history, but I could still use your help."

A silent pause followed until Garrus finally spoke. "You know you can't trust Aria," he said, "I understand Cerberus is the enemy, but Aria isn't exactly a friend herself."

"I'm not trusting Aria," she admitted, "I'm trusting her wounded pride. She hates Cerberus for kicking her out of her 'kingdom', she'll do whatever it takes to get it back."

The Turian sighed through his mandibles. "Why me?" he asked.

"Besides the fact that you're one of my best friends? You were Archangel, Garrus, you know Omega almost as well as Aria. I need people with experience and you definitely fit the bill."

Another pause followed until Garrus finally said, "so it has nothing to do with my dashing good looks?"

Shepard let out a chuckle, "afraid not buddy."

Garrus chuckled this time. "Aria might not appreciate having me around. I hit a few of her operations too when I was Archangel. You sure she won't just shoot me the minute she sees me?"

"She won't if she expects me to help out."

Garrus stared out into the pool and the Krogan statue for a brief moment. Then finally turned back to her and nodded. "Alright Shepard, I'll do this for you."

Shepard smiled and placed her hand on the Turian's shoulder. "Thank you Garrus, I really appreciate this."

"Don't mention it, to be honest I'm being very selfish. Ever since I became a Spectre I've been on way too many solo missions. Working with a friend again will be a nice change of pace."

#

With Garrus recruited, Shepard had only one last person to contact. The problem was that she wasn't quite sure how to do that.

This particular person was always moving around and always changing her contacts. More than likely she wasn't even using her real name, which made her even harder to find.

But, if Shepard's hunch was right, she wouldn't have to wait very long before-.

Her Omni-tool chirped, indicating that she'd just received a text. Shepard brought out her Omni-tool and checked her text messages. She had received one new message from an unknown source. That was definitely the next recruit.

The message read: _"Meet me at Dark Star –M"_

#

Like it had been the last time she'd been here, the Dark Star lounge was a mixture of loud synthetic music, flashing lights, and lots of alcohol. Shepard recalled that she had in fact gotten drunk here once and somehow ended up in the men's bathroom.

Shepard scanned the booths and it wasn't long before she spotted her contact. Judging by the many eyes staring into that same booth, it seemed that many others had spotted her as well and couldn't keep their eyes off. Honestly, Shepard couldn't blame them.

"Ms. Lawson," greeted Shepard as she slid into the booth.

"Commander," the gorgeous brunette curtly replied, "it's good to see you again. Join me for a drink?"

"No thanks, I had one earlier."

"Heh, after your last experience I can't blame you," Miranda playfully teased.

"I was under a lot of stress!" Shepard defended.

"There are other ways to relieve stress Commander."

Shepard chuckled, "yeah, I guess. So I'm guessing you know what I'm up to."

"I always keep tabs on my friends," admitted Miranda.

That put a smile on Shepard's face. "Stalker," she teased, "some people might get the wrong idea."

Miranda shrugged and swept an errant strand of hair away from her face.

"So you know that I'm going to Omega and that I'm going to take down Cerberus. Will you come with me? You're knowledge of Cerberus's tactics and methods could really help out."

"As it so happens, I called you here to volunteer."

"Really?"

Miranda nodded. "I've been keeping tabs on Cerberus Commander and to tell you the truth, this invasion of yours…I'm worried." The brunette motioned for Shepard to lean forward. "I've heard things from my contacts. Nothing solid but what I have heard is disturbing to say the least."

"Like what?"

"Nothing solid like I said. But all reports seem to return to one thing: bioweapons."

"Bioweapons, you mean experiments?"

"Most likely. During the Reaper war Cerberus implanted their own soldiers with Reaper technology. With their own private supply of test subjects there's no doubt they'd keep experimenting."

"Test subjects? Oh god, you mean…"

"Omega's citizens, yes," Miranda nodded. "I never liked that place or its people, but no one deserves what Cerberus does."

"You'll hear no argument from me. Glad to have you onboard Miri."

Miranda smiled, flashing Shepard with her perfect teeth. "Glad to be back."

#

 _Omega – Cerberus Fleet_

Circling the massive space station a swarm of sleek ships bearing Cerberus colors patrolled their territory like squads of hungry sea monsters.

But among them swam a monster of a different breed. An alpha predator, a warrior of no equal, a survivor of unspeakable horrors. It moved among their lines completely undetected, it watched but it never struck. It simply sat and watched.

Like all good hunters, the White Hunter knew that the key to a successful hunt was understanding of the prey's habits and customs. He had spent the better part of the last fifteen solar cycles observing the patterns of the Cerberus Armada.

The collection of ships placed themselves in a fairly standard set up.

The outer ring of their formation was made of mostly frigates and fighters, the smaller more maneuverable ships capable of running down potential targets or scouting possible anomalies. They were easy to sneak through, their numbers were the most spread out and their onboard sensors weren't nearly advanced enough to pick up the White Hunter's cloaked vessel.

Further into the blockade were the Destroyer and Cruiser class ships. Larger and more heavily built, these spacefaring vehicles were meant to be the main line of defense against large offensives. But they were not meant to sift out lone infiltrators, therefore they were of small concern to the hunter.

Finally the furthest inside the armada's defensive blockade were Cerberus's largest ships: Dreadnoughts and Carriers. The Carriers stayed behind the protection of the smaller vessels for obvious reasons. The Dreadnoughts however were a bit of a puzzle.

Most commanders would have placed their most powerful vessels further out to utilize them more immediately should a battle come. But the White Hunter believed this commander shrewder.

It was only as the hunter attempted to approach the station, after stealthily gliding through gaps in the blockade, that he understood the strange positioning of the dreadnoughts.

Omega, the station's sensors, tracked motion. Positioned in the middle of an asteroid field the station all too often had to defend itself from stray debris. Anything without proper identification tags were treated as incoming asteroids and summarily vaporized by the station's defense batteries.

Only something highly maneuverable, like the Hunter's ship, could survive the station's defenses and escape. When he did, Cerberus's dreadnoughts would be in prime position to immediately open fire.

Thankfully the White Hunter's onboard system had warned him in advance of the station's defensive measures and he hadn't had to test the defenses himself. But without proper identification tags the Hunter was left stuck outside of his intended destination.

He had no doubt that if he tried he would be able to make it past the station's defenses but by then the prey would be alerted and it was a poor hunter who alerted the swarm to an incursion into the hive.

Inside the cockpit of his vessel the White Hunter clicked his tusks and idly tapped his right eye. He had lost it in a hunt once and had since replaced it with an orb of glass. Like others he could have simply had the organ cybernetically replaced but had decided against it.

Instead he would keep it as it was in order to remind himself of that fateful day when his hunt brothers were struck down as consequence to his foolish pride. He had grown arrogant in his numerous victories, so much so that he'd allowed prey to strike him in misguided shows of non-existent invincibility.

Recently the White Hunter began to fear that he had not yet fully tempered his pride.

His clan had received whispers and rumors from the scouts that a serpent infestation had arisen from one of the Reaper's old vaults many lunar cycles ago. Then only a few cycles ago they had gained confirmation that the lesser races were breeding the serpents on the Omega space station.

Clearly the lesser races had gone completely mad! They held neither the skill nor the knowledge on how to properly breed the serpents. Naturally it fell to the hunter's clan to wipe out this new hive before it grew out of control and spread to other systems.

But either out of pride or blindness, the White Hunter had sent several of his students to deal with the problem. They were strong, though young, all full blooded hunters who had earned their mark and already undertaken their own hunts.

The White Hunter had placed great faith in them, but now it seemed that they too were lost to the White Hunter's foolish pride. He had believed they would be able to handle the situation on Omega but they had not yet reported back and it had been many solar cycles since their agreed return.

No more, the White Hunter had decided. No one else would pay for his arrogance, he would deal with the lesser races and this budding hive himself.

It was pure agony to be forced to simply sit here while the desire to act burned within his chest. But once again the hunter tapped his glass eye.

Patience was required here not bravado.

In time an opportunity would present itself.

He just needed patience.

#

" _We're approaching the rendezvous point Commander."_

"Thanks Joker, I'll be up there soon." Shepard strapped on the last of her armor and turned to the weapons rack where her team was already gearing themselves up.

"We'll be operating in enemy territory with limited support," said Zaeed as he tweaked the settings on his assault rifle. "Be sure to take as much ammo, gel clips, and other shit that we need."

"You don't think Aria's people will give us a spare clip if we need one?" asked Garrus as he calibrated his sniper rifle's scope.

"They're pirates and mercs. We're more likely to strip ammo of Cerberus's boys."

"Are you sure you want to take that Zaeed? We've got plenty of other assault rifles on the ship"

"Not a chance Shepard," replied Zaeed. "I finally got Jessie all nice and fixed up," the elderly merc held out his Lancer rifle like it was a trophy, "there ain't any other rifle I'd rather be taking."

"If you say so. What about you Garrus? Got everything you need?"

"I'd like a few more minutes to calibrate scopes but other than that I'm ready to go."

Shepard nodded, then turned her attention to the third member of her team. "You're looking battle ready Ms. Lawson."

During their first couple of missions together, Shepard had been baffled by Miranda's tendency to go into fire fights wearing nothing but a skintight body suit for protection. Shepard herself never went into battle without being covered from head to toe in ballistic ceramic body armor.

But as time went on Miranda showed that she had an excellent talent for not getting shot and so Shepard never insisted she wear body armor.

It was therefore quite a surprise to see the ex-Cerberus officer wearing a full suit of Cerberus Assault armor. The armor was a clean polish white but was detailed with Alliance blue instead of the Cerberus yellow.

The layers of bullet proof ceramic did little to hide Miranda's perfect hourglass figure. Shepard had to admit that it made her just tinge jealous.

She holstered her Phalanx pistol and nodded. "Ready when you are Commander," she said.

Shepard returned the nod and went about selecting her own weaponry.

In battle Shepard fancied herself a front line combatant. She preferred to fight in the thick of it, surrounded by enemies while her team picked them off from a distance.

She picked herself out a Geth Pulse Rifle, it had been a gift to her from Legion. At first the foreign rifle's ability to recoillesly fire streams of mass accelerator rounds had disturbed Shepard, who was used to the compensating for the constant kick of her rifle.

But after wielding it in a few engagements she had come to appreciate its accuracy and massive magazine size.

Omega was entirely an urban environment. That meant lots of narrow hallways and close quarters. For those situations Shepard took a Scimitar shotgun, then grabbed a Carnifex as a sidearm.

Once the entire team had chosen their respective weapons they made their way to the CIC where Shepard joined Joker in the Normandy's cockpit.

"Hey Commander," the pilot greeted her. "These are the coordinates but it doesn't look like there's anyone here."

"Well, it's not like they can just float around in the open where they could be discovered," she replied glibly, "send out a broadcast on the frequency they provided."

Joker's fingers tapped across the Normandy's display. "Sending out the broadcast, go ahead and say something Commander."

Shepard smirked playfully. She cleared her throat and said, "Hey! Are there any four eyed assholes named Bray listening on this frequency?!"

A few moments passed and they received a reply ping. Joker opened the return package and played it for the two of them to listen.

" _Very funny human. A shuttle is coming to pick up you and your team. Be ready."_

Shepard chuckled mischievously. The prophesized shuttle soon arrived and attached itself to the Normandy's portside airlock via umbilical.

"Have a good trip Commander and can I just say, I really don't like this," said Joker.

"Don't worry Joker, I've fought against Cerberus before."

"Yeah…they aren't the ones I'm worried about."

Shepard chuckled again. "Don't worry Joker," she repeated, "I've got people to watch my back."

#

The shuttle picked them up as took them to Aria's fleet of mercenary and pirate ships. It was an impressive number Shepard had to admit. But she wasn't sure how well they would fare against the well-armed and coordinated Cerberus armada.

Undoubtedly Aria had some sort of plan in mind.

That plan became more apparent when they arrived at Aria's flagship. Shepard had expected it to be the single massive dreadnought in the middle of the fleet. Instead it was a Cerberus cruiser.

"Would you look at that," Garrus said with begrudging respect.

"It seems Aria has opted to use a Trojan horse," added Miranda.

Garrus shuffled his brow plates before finally asking, "what's a Trojan horse?"

#

Upon docking and disembarking they were greeted by Bray, of all people. The team of Humans plus one Turian were then led to the cruiser's CIC where they found Aria using the command console to communicate holographically with an Asari.

"… _we're out-shipped four-to-one, and most of our vessels are transports with limited firepower."_

That didn't sound good.

Aria spoke with cold confidence. "We're not here to win a space battle, Jarral. We just have to punch through their line."

Shepard decided to take that moment to announce herself.

"So you've commandeered a Cerberus cruiser."

"The guest of honor has arrived," said Aria with her usual semi-sardonic tone, "we can finally start."

The crime lord dismissed Jarral and tapped a few commands onto the command console.

"Let me guess, going for the Trojan Horse technique?"

Aria, unlike Garrus, was well versed in Human history and was able to respond without missing a beat, much to Shepard's disappointment.

"We're going to infiltrate the enemy's lines, yes. We position ourselves to strike a crippling blow, then my forces join the fun."

"You can't possibly think that will prove effective against Petrovsky," said Miranda.

Aria's eyes shifted onto Shepard's team, specifically Miranda. She stalked past the Commander and scanned them with her gaze like one would look over a potential purchase.

"This is your team?" she asked with a tinge of amusement in her voice.

"Yes, it is." Shepard crossed her arms, "got a problem with that?"

"Not yet, and no I don't expect this throwback to Odysseus to beat Petrovsky Ms. Lawson." Aria placed extra emphasis on Miranda's name. It was a subtle threat if Shepard had ever heard one, basically saying _"I know who you are, don't push me."_

Garrus stepped in to break the tension. "Miranda is just voicing her concerns, a lot could go wrong with this plan."

"Archangel." Garrus hid his surprise well but his eyes widened ever so slightly and Aria caught it. "You've got quite the pair to step onto this ship after what you did on Omega."

Garrus's talon drifted ever so slightly towards his sidearm.

"Luckily for you," continued Aria, "you're little crusade is a good enough resume to stop me from shooting you right here. I hope you're ready to cause as much pain for Cerberus as you did me."

The talon slipped away from the butt of his pistol. "We'll see," he replied.

Finally Aria turned her attention to Zaeed, who was calmly smoking his cigar. "I'm just here to kill shit," he explained.

That seemed to be a good enough explanation for Aria, because she took it and returned to Shepard.

"This assault's been planned for weeks," she assured, "every detail and possibility has been accounted for. For now, just sit back and let me steer."

As the crime boss moved to direct her crew, Shepard frowned and called out after her. "Not the best start to our partnership Aria."

Without looking back the Asari responded, "how things begin isn't nearly as important as how they end."

Shepard watched her new "partner" dole out commands to for the crew to move the ship through the relay while the fleet waited.

"Have I ever mentioned that I hate that bitch?" Garrus asked in a whisper.

"I think I could have guessed."

#

The trip through the Mass Relay was brief as they always were. Soon Shepard could see the ominous orange glow of the Omega station contrasted against the darkness of space.

And between them and the station, the Cerberus fleet.

It was even bigger than Jane had thought it would be. How had they escaped from the Reaper wars so cleanly? Or was this all just a result of two years of rebuilding? Could there really still be that many people willing to sign up with these racist terrorist a-holes?

"Head for their command ship," ordered Aria.

"So what's the plan?" asked Shepard.

"We can't hope to beat the fleet in a straight shooting match," explained Aria, "our main goal is to make a large enough opening so that my fleet can reach Omega and land. From there we'll establish a beach head."

"And this ship? We'll use it to dock?"

"No, if we do that the rest of the fleet won't make it through. We're going to take out their command ship to cause enough chaos for an effective surprise attack."

"With a fleet this size I'm not sure taking out the command ship will matter."

"Think again," said Aria without hesitation, "look at those ships, does anything about them strike you as odd?"

Shepard peered through the observation glass. She stared for a few moments trying to grasp what it was that Aria was trying to point out.

"They're in perfect formation I can tell you that much," she tried.

"Exactly, almost too perfect."

Shepard furrowed her brows. "What are you saying?"

"Two years is a long time Shepard, but you left Cerberus more beat up than they'd like you to know. Almost half of those ships are automated, controlled via VI."

Jane's eyes lit up as she began to understand. "A VI that's stationed on the Command Ship?"

Aria smiled, "precisely, that's part of the reason they keep command ships in the back. Cerberus knows that if their Command ship goes down half their fleet will just be useless debris floating in space."

"Still, you're talking about taking down a dreadnaught with a cruiser. Surprise attack or not there's a pretty big difference in tonnage."

Aria's smile widened. "Don't worry, I've got a little something for that."

By now Omega's orange glow was leaking into the CIC and ships placed on the outer ring of the formation were moving in to investigate.

"Their hailing us," announced Bray.

"Put them through." The Batarian nodded.

" _Cruiser, I don't have you on the flight plan. Identify yourself."_ A man spoke through the COM.

Bray entered a series of commands and began playing a prerecorded message.

" _This is Captain Lentz. Run voice recognition: alpha, tango, zed. We took damage. Seeking repairs,"_ said a haggard voice.

" _Identity confirmed Captain. Hold for approach authorization."_

"How did you get the captain to say that?" asked Shepard,

"The hard way."

" _Approach authorization granted captain. Move to Docking Bay C7."_

Bray played another prerecorded message. _"Thank you. Moving to the docking bay now."_

"Move us in," ordered Aria.

Slowly the stolen Cerberus cruiser flew into the awaiting fleet. Soon they were completely surrounded by the enemy. Dozens of ships shifted across their view ever second. The possibility of discovery held a palpable tension over the entire bridge.

"That's right, nice and slow," said Aria.

No one else dared speak, as though they were afraid the other ships might somehow hear them.

They had passed through the first and second rings. The command ship, a massive dreadnought, was now within view. Shepard's eyes drifted towards the massive twin cannons mounted on its belly. A dreadnought following Citadel restrictions had enough firepower to level entire colonies.

Cerberus of course was not bound by Citadel restrictions. Which meant that more than likely neither did their weapons.

"Prepare the payload," ordered Aria.

"You still haven't told me what this special surprise you have is."

"It's a miniature nuclear warhead."

"What?!" Shepard's voice shattered the silence, "you're going to fire a nuke?!"

"A miniature nuke," corrected Aria. "Don't worry, it's not a city destroyer. Only a 5 kilotons."

"Nukes are illegal," commented Garrus.

"We're in Terminus space now Archangel, nothing is illegal."

"God damn it Aria," muttered Shepard. She sighed and said, "just keep us out of the blast radius. I'd hate for this invasion to be over before it begins."

The stolen cruiser continued to creep closer until finally Bray announced, "we're at minimum safe distance."

"Targeting computer locked!" announced a Salarian helmsman.

"Fire!"

#

The White Hunter was patiently awaiting the needed distraction required for him to slip through the automated defenses.

Then a fiery star suddenly blossomed on the other side of the station.

The White Hunter tapped his glass eye and steered his ship towards the explosion.

#

Shepard had seen nuclear bomb tests on old holovids and of course she witnessed them small scale when firing the M-100 Cain. But to see a real nuclear explosion, in the vacuum of space, was something completely different.

Without oxygen there explosion didn't contain the famous mushroom cloud or shockwave. Instead it simply engulfed the Cerberus dreadnought in an expanding cloud of red hot plasma. It was almost as if a miniature sun had come to life and the command ship had been just unfortunate enough to be at the epicenter of its birth.

Zaeed let out a low whistle, shattering the silence on the bridge. "Now that's a good way to start the day."

"Signal the fleet through the relay!" Aria barked.

Mercenary and pirate ships began to stream through the relay that their ship had traveled through only recently. As predicted by Aria, now that the command ship was nothing more than a mass of boiling metal and plasma, half the ships simply floated uselessly while the other half moved to engage the incoming threat.

Ship began to exchange fire and soon the entire system was alight.

"Head straight for the station," ordered Aria.

A chirp suddenly came from Bray's station. "We're being hailed by the station," said the Batarian.

"Must be the General. Should be interesting to hear what he has to say. Put him through," she decided.

The CIC's holoprojectorr morphed a projection of Omega into a man. Middle aged and wearing the uniform of a high ranking Cerberus officer.

"Aria," the man spoke calmly, "I knew this had to be you." Shepard noted a striking similarity in the man's tone. It gave off the same sardonic vibe that Aria's did, always feeling as though you'd been mocked in some subtle way.

"You'll never make it," the General continued, "call off your attack now."

The Asari crime lord's response was to snort in amusement. "You're barking up the wrong tree, General. But maybe you can convince my partner."

Shepard took that as her cue and stepped forward.

The General raised an intrigued brow. "Commander Shepard? I've heard great things about you, it's a pleasure."

"I'm afraid I can't say the same. My partner here doesn't have much to say about you."

Petrovsky smiled and allowed himself a small chuckle. "Indeed, she's not used to being defeated. It clouds her judgement, makes her…predictable. A pity you left Cerberus. We all sabotage ourselves in nefarious ways. Perhaps deep down you fear success."

The General then turned his attention back to Aria. "An unexpected and surprising play Aria, but nothing more. Clearly you thought that seeing the Commander would unsettle me. Now it's my turn." His hand moved to type away at an invisible console not rendered by the holographic display.

"I see you've gone to the trouble of augmenting that ship with Silaris armoring. An exorbitant waste. I've made improvements to Omega's outer defenses. My cannons will cut through you at will."

"He sounds pretty confident," whispered Shepard.

Aria scowled, "yeah, he does."

"So again I say, turn back."

Aria leaned over the holotable. "Let's see what you've got, Oleg." She turned to Bray, "End Transmission."

The holographic projector cut out and projection of the General disappeared.

"That went well," said Aria, apparently pleased with herself.

"What are we going to do about those defenses?" asked Miranda, "It didn't sound like he was bluffing about those."

"Not to worry, I already know about the upgrades to Omega's defenses. They'll be taken care of shortly."

"What?! Wait, how did you know about them?" asked Shepard.

"Despite what Petrovsky might think, a real battle is nothing like chess. Because chess doesn't let you have inside sources."

"You've got contact with someone inside of Omega?"

"I do. If all goes according to plan the defenses won't be an issue. Until then…" she turned to Bray, "set preset course, we're ramming the station. Everyone, brace for impact."

"What?!" Shepard asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

"God damn it," muttered Zaeed as he put out his cigar, "looks like it's gonna be another one of those days."

"Omega's kinetic barrier will stop my ships from landing," explained Aria, "I equipped this cruiser with disrupters to take it out on impact."

Shepard shot a nasty glare at Aria that simply screamed: why didn't you tell me before!

"Don't worry, we'll probably survive the crash," said Aria in an annoying calm tone.

#

As the stolen Cerberus cruiser accelerated towards Omega, the station's defenses began to power up. The guns locked on the incoming vessel.

"Target in range," announced the Cerberus gunner.

"Fire!"

#

All of a sudden molten red beams lashed out from Omega, nearly ripping through the stolen cruiser's hull.

"Incoming GARDIAN fire!" yelled Bray.

"Stay the course!" ordered Aria,

"I thought you said your inside source would handle the defenses!" barked Garrus.

"He will!" insisted Aria. Then under her breath she muttered, "he'd better."

The cruiser shook as one of the GARDIAN lasers struck the ship across the bow.

"Our shields are down!"

#

"Sir their shields are down," said the Cerberus gunner.

"Finish them off."

#

 _ **Omega Deck D – Generator Room B3**_

A team of six Cerberus troopers patrolled the catwalks of the generator room. At the end of their patrol protocol dictated that a team report via COM to their outpost.

"This is patrol 3," the squad sergeant reported, "generator room B3 secure, continuing route."

" _Roger patrol 3, you are cleared to continue."_

The transmission ended and the entire squad took a single step forward. Then shimmer dropped down from above and landed in their midst with a loud and audible clang.

"What the-!" The trooper's words ended in a gurgle as an Omni-blade slashed through his throat.

"Contact!" Two more troopers raised their weapons to fire at the shimmer. Two omni-tools flashed to life mid-air and fired Incineration apps causing the two troopers to burst into flames. They screamed, one panicked and fell over the railing to a quicker death.

"Son of a bitch!" Another trooper broke trigger discipline and began to wildly fire his weapon at the shimmer. His shots were wild and in the end the only thing he ended up hitting was a fellow trooper, square in the head.

The man's head burst apart like an overripe melon.

"Shit!" the trooper cursed, just in time for an Omni-blade to break through his chest and slice open his heart.

"Damn it!" the Sergeant cursed. All of his men were dead, he desperately tried to radio his commanding officer but was greeted with only static. His COMs were being jammed!

A shimmer of light caught the corner of his eye and he immediately sprayed a burst of mass accelerator rounds in its general direction.

"Where are you!?" he demanded vainly.

Something suddenly barreled past him, nearly knocking him to the floor.

"What the- _Beep, beep, beep."_ The Cerberus sergeant immediately recognized the gradually quickening rhythmic sound. One glance at his belt confirmed his suspicions, one of his grenades had had its activation stud pressed.

"Shit! Shit! Shit-" The sergeant's fumbling panicked hands were too slow and his life ended in a ball of fire.

With the Cerberus soldiers dead, the shimmer of light moved to complete its mission.

#

"Shields are down! We can't take another hit like that!"

"Stay the course!"

"But-"

"I said stay the course!"

"Omega's defenses are powering up for another shot!" announced a helmsman.

Shepard grabbed the crime lord by the shoulder "Aria this is suicide!"

"We'll make it!" she insisted.

"They're about to fire!"

Every being on the bridge grabbed something and braced themselves for the inevitable. But it never came.

#

"I said fire!" repeated the Cerberus commander.

"I can't! Systems are shutting down, power is failing, something must be wrong with the generators!"

#

"Some of the defenses are powering down!" announced a helmsman, "we've got a window!"

"Punch it!"

The stolen cruiser accelerated to full speed.

"All hands brace for impact!"

#

General Petrovsky calmly contemplated the scene before him.

If he moved his knight forward, he could potentially take away his opponent's pawn and perhaps even a bishop after that. But there was a huge risk of losing the valuable piece in the process.

He brief considered bringing his queen into play but quickly decided against it. Never show your strongest card too early.

"Sir," a trooper from behind saluted.

"Hm?"

"A ship has breached our defenses and disrupted the station's kinetic barriers.

"Unfortunate, where have they landed?"

"Their ship crashed into sector 9 of E Deck."

The General stroked his beard. "Move teams in to greet them."

"Yes sir."

Petrovsky turned back to the chess board and moved forward a pawn. Sometimes the best decision was simplest one.

#

Shepard groaned.

One moment the ship had been perfectly stable, the next it had shook like 10 on the richter scale. Now she lay on the floor ass over teakettle with her ears ringing and her vision blurry.

As soon as she could see properly Shepard propped herself up against the holotable. "Is everyone alright?" she asked.

"Never been better," groaned Garrus as he eventually stood up as well.

"All systems are down," announced Bray, "but it looks like the disrupters did their job, Omega's kinetic barrier is down."

"All hands move out!" ordered Aria, "we've got to establish a beach head before Cerberus mobilizes a response."

Shepard noted Miranda still lying on the floor. She held out a hand which the brunette graciously accepted.

"I guess that contact of yours came through," said Shepard, "remind me to thank them for getting us through that though spot."

"That was the easy part," said Aria, "from here on out, it's a ground war."

#

The attacking fleet had served as an adequate distraction and the lone infiltrating ship that had destroyed the Cerberus dreadnought had been an excellent battering ram.

He did not know who this new faction was nor did he truly care. They had served the White Hunter's purpose, allowing him access to the lair of his prey.

Now this station would prove to be the resting place of Cerberus.

Now it was time for the hunt to begin!

 **End**

 **Authors Comments:**

 **Hi guys, I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long. But college has an impressive ability to drain my will to write creatively.**

 **I hope you all liked this chapter.**

 **Not a lot of action happening, more of a set up for the next chapter which will be tons and tons of action.**

 **So yes I brought in Zaeed, Garrus, and Miranda. Those three are pretty awesome and I wanted to do some writing of different characters.**

 **Also the White Hunter, that's what I'm calling him, has made his way to Omega. More of what he's been up to and what has happened to his students will be revealed later on. Suffice it to say I have plans.**

 **The idea for Miranda's armor came from the deviantart page: HuggyBear742**

 **Everyone please leave a review! I really want to know how you feel about what I'm writing.**

 **Don't forget to place this story on alert if you haven't already so you can keep up to date with the latest.**

 **See you next chapter!**

 **Bye bye!**


	3. Chapter 2: Beachhead

**Chapter 2**

 **Beachhead**

Shepard's had once watched a documentary on World War 2. Her father had explained to her that even though it had taken place well over a century ago and had been fought exclusively on a single planet, it still had modern day relevance.

After having fought Batarian slavers, Omega mercenaries, and the Reapers, Shepard found herself agreeing. War was hell no matter where or when it was fought.

D-day, the Allied Invasion of Normandy, had always stuck out to Shepard. The men must have been terrified as they stood in their cramped boats, knowing full well that they were likely to be chopped to pieces by MG fire before their boots could even touch the sand.

"This is not a good plan," Garrus muttered next to her.

"I agree with Vakarian, this isn't a plan at all, more like mass suicide," agreed Miranda from behind.

"I'll probably survive if you all don't," quipped Zaeed.

Aria had beached her ship into the side of Omega, much like how the U.S marines beached their transports onto Normandy's sand. Now the entirety of the crew had gathered into the cargo bay and were anxiously awaiting the loading ramp to lower.

Just like the marines at Normandy, Aria planned for her mercenaries to storm into Omega where hostile fire would no doubt chew them to pieces.

In some ways, Shepard might have preferred storming Normandy beach.

With Normandy the U.S marines had had multiple ships, spreading out the German bunker fire onto multiple targets. Here, there was just one ship and one ramp, nothing would distract Cerberus from three dozen mercs charging down a single ramp.

In addition the German forces at Normandy had not even been prepared for the U.S landing. In fact they'd been caught completely off guard. Here, Cerberus definitely knew they were coming. More than likely there were already troopers outside the ship preparing defenses.

"Just stick together and we'll make it through this," said Shepard, more to convince herself than her team.

"Yeah but still-"

"Having second thoughts?" Aria interrupted Garrus as she loaded her submachine gun.

"You could say that," Shepard responded tersely.

"Don't worry, Vorcha make excellent cannon fodder. They'll soak up most of the bullets while we find cover."

Shepard winced. Vorcha were unpleasant beings to say the least and not even she could find many redeeming qualities about them. But to refer to them as cannon fodder didn't sit right with her. It didn't help that Aria had placed herself and Shepard's team at the back of the formation.

As a leader, Shepard liked to lead from the front. If it had been up to her she would have been the first to step of the ramp. But Aria had been adamant that the "irreplaceable" units be the last to step off.

"We're ready," a Salarian informed Aria.

The Asari nodded. "Good" she said, then shouted at the top of her lungs "LOWER THE RAMP!"

Everyone immediately tensed. The dark of the cargo bay was suddenly cut through by a slim beam of putrid orange light.

Over the near deafening sound of the ship's ramp being lowered, Shepard's ear caught wisps of someone barking orders. A second later she saw a number of mercs toss grenades over the lowering ramp.

"Smoke grenades," explained Aria when Shepard turned to her. "It won't stop Cerberus from shooting but it'll stop them from shooting accurately."

Shepard nodded.

When the ramp was half way down a Krogan stationed with the Vorcha let out a loud bellow and roared, "CHARGE!"

Like hounds let loose on a hunt the Vorcha bounded forth up the still lowering ramp, only to leap off into the cloud of covering smoke.

 **"Contact!"** Shepard heard someone yell, followed by the savage cries of the Vorcha and the sound of mass accelerator fire.

Finally the ramp was low enough for the rest of the crew to join the fight.

There was no uniformed roar as they moved forward or rallying cry to boost their spirits. Every mercenary charging into the fight was motivated by one thing at this point: survival. Cerberus did not accept surrenders and if by some miracle they did, Aria would not.

An army driven by profit, fear, and hatred. That was who Shepard and her team were fighting alongside.

Well, beggars couldn't be choosers and it wasn't like Cerberus was any better.

True to Aria's word the Vorcha had served as excellent frontline fodder. By the time the first boots of the main mercenary force hit Omega's decks, most of the Cerberus troops had expended their clips and were in the process of reloading.

The mercenaries opened fire and Cerberus soldiers began to fall to the deck.

Never one to let others do the fighting for her, Shepard instinctively charged out after them. Aria called out in protest but her words were drowned out by the now constant sound of combat and death. Shepard's team loyally followed their leader down the ramp and onto the battlefield.

As Shepard herself stepped onto Omega's freshly bloodied deck the smoke grenades finally began to run out, allowing her to analyze the shit storm they were stepping into.

Cerberus was dug in.

Mobile cover, shield generators, and heavy weapon emplacements dotted their lines.

The cover units allowed the Cerberus troopers better protections and the shield generators enhanced their kinetic barriers, making it even harder to kill them. Four manned heavy turrets shredded any mercenary foolish enough to stay out of cover for too long.

This was going to be tough, but not impossible.

"Zaeed, take out those turrets! Garrus, use your sniper rifle to knock out their shield generators!"

"On it!" both said.

"Miranda, with me."

The brunette nodded, "I'm with you Commander!"

"So am I!" Aria joined the two human women behind cover.

"Primary Target sighted! Engage! Enga-"

The Asari crime boss silenced the Cerberus soldier with a well shot from her shotgun. She then used her biotic powers to send the body hurtling into his comrades.

"I'm back you sons of bitches!"

Having made her first kill in the war, Aria ducked back down to address Shepard. "I'm coming with you," she repeated, "I trust that won't be a problem."

"That depends, are you willing to follow my orders?"

"This is what I brought you for Shepard: ground assaults. In combat, what you say goes."

A grenade exploded nearby, ripping a Batarian and Turian into meaty bits.

"Giving over authority? That doesn't sound like you Aria."

A pair of Cerberus Guardians, soldiers equipped with combat grade riot shields, moved through suppressive mercenary gunfire towards Shepard's position. Miranda popped up from their cover, her body aglow with biotic power.

With a wave of her hand both Guardian's found their shields ripped from their hands. Miranda followed up by destroying their kinetic barriers with her Omni-tool's Overload app and then finished them with expertly placed headshots from her submachine gun.

"We play to our strengths. I know where we need to go and you can get us there," explained Aria.

Garrus fired his sniper rifle once, twice, three times and all three of Cerberus's shield generators went offline. The Turian loaded a fresh thermal clip into his weapon and squeezed the trigger another three times. This time three Cerberus troopers who had been suppressing a squad of Asari went down.

Through his scope Garrus saw the leader of the squad give a wave and wink of appreciation before ordering her squad forward.

Zaeed had dove deep into the battlefield, placing himself on the front lines. Bullets whizzed just centimeters from his ears, blood and bits of meat carpeted the area around him, and the sweet smell of his cigar filled his nostrils.

He was home.

The grizzled mercenary unclipped two inferno grenades from his belt and tossed them over his cover. Ten seconds later he heard them detonate followed by the curdling screams of the Cerberus soldiers who were now being melted along into their armor.

A quick peak over his cover confirmed that two turret operators had been caught in the explosion. The third Zaeed deal with using a single well placed concussive shot.

 _"Shield generators offline."_ Shepard heard Garrus say over the team COM. _"Same for the turrets,"_ Zaeed followed up.

Aria's mercenaries surged forward and the Cerberus forces wisely retreated from the beachhead.

"Keep the pressure up!" ordered Shepard as she fired her pulse rifle at the escaping enemy. Was shooting the enemy in the back distasteful? Yes. Did Cerberus deserve it? Absolutely.

Aria enthusiastically joined in on gunning down the enemy.

When Cerberus was no longer an immediate danger Shepard ordered her squad to regroup. "Alright, what's our target?" she asked.

"The Defense System Station, we need to shut down the rest of Omega's outer defenses so my ships can land safely. If we don't, they'll be blown to bits, and this war will be over before it even begins."

"Got it. Let's round up the crew and-"

Aria cut her off. "I need the remainder of my forces to unload supplies and secure the rendezvous point. Your team should be sufficient to take the station."

"Just us?" asked Garrus, "you sure that's wise Aria? By now Cerberus will be on high alert, protecting vital strategic points."

"And if I know the General, he'll definitely have anticipated the importance of the Defense Station," Miranda followed up.

"Don't worry, we'll have support. Just not from my forces."

Shepard understood quickly. "You're contact."

Aria nodded. "They'll probably meet us on the way there."

"You've been in contact?"

"No. But he's smart, he'll figure it out."

Jane exchanged a few skeptical glances with her team but ultimately chose not to voice their concerns about Aria's unwillingness to divulge any details.

"Alright, then let's get moving."

#

General Petrovsky silently watched the streamed security footage before him. Even as events swirled around him his brilliant mind continued to formulate new strategies to compensate for new developments.

So far only Aria's ship had managed to make a landing. Petrovsky had suspected that the extra armor on her vessel would be enough to allow her to survive, just as he had suspected she possessed help stationed inside Omega.

No ordinary help either, the encryption placed on the generators was top of the line. To crack it, one needed to either be a member of Cerberus or have a near mythical skill at hacking. Petrovsky knew that all of his soldiers were absolutely loyal, so the former was out of the question. The latter however…perhaps an alien, more than likely either a Salarian or Quarian.

Petrovsky banished the thoughts from his mind, it was something to think about another time.

Aria's forces and the insider were the most present and pressing threats at the moment. If she managed to deactivate the Omega's defenses the rest of her fleet would be able to land. Fortunately Petrovsky knew that he didn't need to keep Aria away from the Defense Station forever, just long enough for Omega's guns to rip the mercenary fleet apart.

"Sir, hostile forces have managed to secure Sector 9. Orders?"

Petrovsky thoughtfully stroked his beard.

"Move squads in to Sectors 8, 6, and 5. Box them in and await my command."

"Yes sir!" As his commands were carried out, the General returned his chessboard. Where both sides had moved their pawns forward.

The timer was still ticking on his own turn.

Instead of moving one of his pieces, Petrovsky allowed the timer to run out.

Sometimes the best decision was to not make one.

#

Cerberus had retreated beyond the sector and sealed a blast door behind them, effectively cutting Shepard and Aria off from proceeding any further. Fortunately, Garrus had easily hacked into the control panel. As he rewired the door, Aria made contact with her fleet.

"Aria to fleet. You alive out there?"

 _"Barely,"_ replied an Asari, _"We're holding our own with the Cerberus fleet, but Omega's defenses are shredding us!"_

"Keep my army intact, Jarral. That is your only job."

Aria cut the connection and turned her attention back to Garrus. "Can't you do this any faster?"

"Hey! Do you want to-" Shepard made cutting motion with her hand. Garrus grumbled and replied, "I'm almost there."

True to his word the blast doors opened themselves just moments later.

"Finally." Aria moved in ahead of everyone else.

Garrus glared daggers into the back of her head but she barely seemed to notice. Shepard placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, it's okay, just hold yourself back a little longer."

"But I don't want to," complained Garrus.

Despite hostilities with their ally Shepard's team continued on. They encountered surprisingly little resistance on the route to their objective. To continue on they were forced to call an elevator which would take them several decks down. The elevators on Omega were mercifully much faster than those on the Citadel.

Unfortunately once the elevator arrived, its doors opened to reveal a Cerberus platoon, consisting of Guardians and Troopers.

"Take cover!" Shepard's team scattered as the enemy opened fire. Jane felt several impacts on her side and saw her kinetic barriers decrease to seventy-five percent.

Finding sanctuary behind a steel column, Shepard unclipped a grenade form her belt and tossed it. The explosive would have ripped the entire platoon apart had the Guardians not formed a phalanx and protected their comrades from the blast.

"Damn it! Can anyone get an angle?!"

Garrus attempted to take aim with his sniper rifle, but as soon as he tried to lean out the troopers forced him back into cover. "I'm pinned down!"

Zaeed sprayed the Cerberus lines with his assault rifle but all rounds were deflected off of the Guardian's shields. "I've got nothing!"

"I think I can give us an opening!" said Miranda, "but it'll only be for a few moments."

"A few moments all I need," Aria calmly stated.

Shepard nodded, "Zaeed, Garrus! Give them some covering fire!"

"Roger!"

"Roger!"

Garrus switched to his assault rifle and joined Zaeed in gaining the attention of the Cerberus troopers. Once she was sure that they were effectively distracted Miranda activated her biotic powers and pulled away a Guardian's shield, opening a hole in the phalanx.

See her chance, Aria called upon her own biotic powers and shot out a fiery blue missile from her hand. The biotic projectile flew through the crack in the Cerberus phalanx and promptly exploded. The Cerberus forces screamed as they were tossed like ragdolls and set ablaze by biotic fire.

Most died almost immediately, the few that weren't were put down by Shepard's team.

"What was that?" asked Shepard, never having seen that particular biotic power before.

"A biotic flare," explained Aria, "a little something that I picked up in my…younger days."

Shepard raised a curious eyebrow, wondering just what Aria had done in her "younger days".

After clearing the charred remains of the Cerberus soldiers they descended several floors onto H deck. They exited the elevator expecting an ambush but were pleasantly surprised to find no such event awaiting them. That made Shepard suspicious.

As they continued on Aria made contact with her forces once again. "Ground team, report in. Bray, you there?"

 _#_

"Affirmative" replied Bray as bullets whizzed over his head.

Cerberus troops were fighting them every inch of the way towards the rendevouz point and it was pissing the elderly Batarian off.

"Cerberus is putting up one hell of a fight!" he yelled over the gun fire.

 _"Keep pushing forward. We'll have Omega's defenses down soon."_

Bray popped up from his cover and gunned down an advancing Centurion with his pistol. "Good! Looking forward to-"

 _HIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!_

"What the hell?"

#

"Bray? Bray what's going on?" demanded Aria.

 _"I'm not sure. Cerberus was standing their ground and then suddenly…they just pulled out."_

Aria scowled. "That doesn't sound like the General," she muttered aloud.

"It's probably a trap," said Miranda.

"Undoubtedly, but we don't have much choice. Bray, keep moving toward the rendezvous hanger and start prepping for our ships to land."

 _"You got it boss."_

"Let's hustle," ordered Aria, "every minute more of my ships get obliterated out there."

Shepard nodded for her team to continue on with Zaeed taking point. Garrus moved to Shepard's side and lightly nudged her with his elbow. "Shepard," he began, "while Aria was on her call. It might have been my imagination, but did you hear…" the Turian trailed off.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "it could have been nothing. But keep your eyes open just in case."

Garrus nodded. "Always," he said.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sudden echo of gunfire.

"Zaeed?"

"We've got something up ahead Commander."

"Everyone get ready, looks like we've got some more work to do."

#

The gunfire as it turned out was from a firefight up ahead. At first Shepard thought that perhaps they were crossing paths with Aria's mercenary forces but the Asari confirmed that none of her men were anywhere near the area.

Shepard and her team advanced cautiously. The Cerberus forces had their backs to them, giving Shepard's team the edge in this conflict. With Cerberus distracted, they could easily sneak into position and gun them down.

At least that was what the plan was until an ungodly amount of explosions, presumably fired by the unknown third party, erupted along the Cerberus line and effectively halving their forces. These explosions were followed up by an equally ungodly amount of bullets which proceeded to put down Cerberus soldiers like dominos.

"Holy shit, there must be a small army out there," said Zaeed.

"Everyone stay ready. Just because they're no friend of Cerberus doesn't mean they'll be any friendlier to us." Aria gave an approving grunt.

"Stay down! Stay down!" ordered the Cerberus Centurion in command of the situation. His troops fired blindly, unable to even lean out of cover and take a properly aimed shot at the unknown third party.

"You two, get ready to push up!" ordered the Centurion. As he turned away a grenade dropped in between the two trooper and reduced them to charred paste. "You two get ready to throw smoke!" As the Centurion finished his sentence one of the troopers took a bullet to the head and slumped to the ground.

"Ready?!" The second trooper's cover exploded. He attempted to rush to new cover only to be violently perforated.

At this point the Centurion realized that he was commanding a platoon of one and Shepard realized that since they'd arrived the sound of gunfire and explosives hadn't stopped once. There really must have been a small army out there.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" the Centurion cursed. With no support he finally decided to make a blind rush at the enemy. His heroic charge ended in the expected way, with ludicrous amounts of blood. Once the remains of the Centurion's body hit the deck, Shepard motioned for the team to move up.

"Ah ah ah – come out, or you'll end up like the fuckers dressed in white." One voice, female. Shepard motioned for her team to stay hidden. Taking a calming breath Jane complied and stepped out into the open.

No army was standing up above on the catwalks. Just a single human woman.

If Jane had to guess, this woman was some sort of mercenary, but definitely not from any of the big gangs like Eclipse or the Blue Suns. Her armors was sort of a mish mash of different sets. Her chest piece was heavy and deep red in color with a large white stripe running down the middle. Interestingly enough her right arm was completely armored while her left arm had been left bare, Shepard suspected it had been done so deliberately in order to show off the mass of tattoos on the left arm.

In the mercenary's hands was one of the biggest machine guns Shepard had ever seen, she suspected that it was the one responsible for the massive amounts of bullets that had been raining down earlier. On the merc's back she spied what she knew to be an M-100 rapid fire grenade launcher.

"Who the fuck are you?" asked the mercenary.

"Commander Shepard," Jane replied truthfully. The mercenary seemed surprised, then she leaned forward and squinted.

"Holy shit! You are Commander Shepard!" The mercenary leapt off from the catwalk, plunging twenty feet before her armor's landing system fired off a series of microjets that slowed her descent, neatly placing her on the floor.

The mercenary then rushed over and held out her hand. "I'm a big fan of your work."

"Uh…thanks." Jane took the merc's hand and silently hoped that this woman wasn't a female version of Conrad Verner. Shepard then reminded herself of the carnage she'd previously witnessed and decided that whoever this mercenary was, she was far more dangerous than Conrad.

"You're here with the boss right?"

"Boss? You mean Aria?"

"Yeah, sexy blue alien MILF in a tight little leather number."

"Uh…"

"I'm right here." Aria stepped out from cover with her arms crossed.

"Oh! H-hey boss! You're looking very…fit." The woman spoke nervously, obviously she was familiar with Aria's reputation.

 _"Shepard, are we good?"_ asked Garrus.

 _"Yeah, looks like we're friends."_

"Shepard, this is one of my best operatives. She's been on Omega making Cerberus pay for crossing me."

"She's you're contact?"

"I'm one of them, name's Lydia. I-"

"Lydia!?" Zaeed's grizzled voice cried out and the elderly merc rushed his way up. "Lydia?! Is that you?! What the hell are you doing here?!"

Lydia's eye's widened and her mouth dropped open. Finally she managed to cough up a single word.

"Dad?!"

#

Infiltrating the station had been a challenge in itself but piloting had never been the White Hunter's strong suite. But now that he was on the ground, so to speak, the pale predator was now in his element. Now he could truly begin his mission, now he could truly begin his hunt.

First, he would have to arm himself appropriately for his hunt. His armory was extensive, containing a large variety of blades, spears, and firearms. It was a shame that he could only carry a limited number with him at a time.

The White Hunter started with the most important piece of his equipment, one that every hunter needed: his mask.

Most hunters had multiple masks that they used on different hunts. The White Hunter however had only ever had one mask that had been bestowed upon him for his first hunt. As time had gone on the White Hunter had added to and modified the mask, changing it as he had changed, but the underneath all the changes it remained the same mask.

Once it had been a Young Blood's mask, simple in its form and devoid of ornamentation. Through many hunts of a feline beast from a favored hunting ground the White Hunter had accumulated a full set of razor sharp teeth which he had proceeded to attach to the mask, giving it a ferocious grin.

The mask's "forehead" was decorated with various glyphs from the hunter's language, all of which bore different meanings. In the middle was the symbol indicating that he had earned from his first **hard meat** kill, which had marked his ascendance to a Blooded Hunter. Next to it was the symbol earned for participating in the hunt of a **hard meat queen**. On the other side was the symbol indicating that he had honorably dispatched a Bad Blood, a criminal of his race.

The most recent addition to the mask however, had come due to a much more recent event: the loss of his right eye. Unlike others of his kind might do, the White Hunter had always looked at the loss of his eye not only as a reminder but as a badge of pride. He had been shot, through the eye. A bullet had gone into his head and yet somehow the Black Warrior, bringer of death, had not come for him.

In order to reflect his pride in his mask, he had sealed the right eye of his mask, so that whenever his prey saw him they would remember that they had been defeated by a hunter with only one eye.

Shaking himself out of past memories, the White Hunter reverently picked up his mask with both hands and gingerly placed upon his face. The mask immediately activated, bringing up its onboard heads up display. After performing a quick diagnostic of all systems the White Hunter moved to choose the rest of his arsenal.

He began with the basic weapons that every member of his kind carried. Two gauntlets, one of which contained a miniature computer that linked with his mask, both of which contained twin pairs of razor sharp wrist blades. The White Hunter had practiced with these weapons since he was an infant.

Next was his spear, useful for taking on large groups of enemies and sometimes useable as a throwing weapon. The White Hunter switched the weapon into its collapsed state and strapped it to the small of his back.

Third was the White Hunter's shoulder cannon. Unlike the basic cannon which fired only one bolt of plasma at a time, the White Hunter's cannon was upgraded with multiple barrels to fire multiple bolts rapidly. He attached it to a mechanical articulated arm on his left shoulder.

Continuing on, the hunter took his secondary ranged weapon. Though they appeared to be just a pair of small metal disks, both contained six retractable blades sharp enough to slice through stones. Both contained in-built tracking and flight correctional capabilities that allowed the shuriken to return to the hunter's hand.

Next were six knives of various shapes and sizes used for different situations such as throwing and skinning.

The next weapon was an uncommon on among the White Hunter's clan. It was a large metal hook attached to a chain five times longer than his own height. The hook and chain was as much a tool as it was a weapon. The White Hunter often used it to scale environments which he was unable to bypass using his own physical means. In combat the White Hunter had found it useful in hooking far away enemies and then dragging them closer.

Finally, the White Hunter took his most prized weapon: an axe carved from the skull of a hard meat queen. It had not always belonged to the White Hunter. Once it had belonged to his clan brother, a younger hunter who had grown fond of decorating his armor with bones, given as a gift by a Clan Elder.

But the White Hunter's brother had fallen in battle against a pack of Yahg. With his last breath he had passed the axe onto the pale warrior. Since then the White Hunter had wielded the weapon in his brother's honor.

Though it had begun as a large one handed axe, the White Hunter had modified the hilt since then to include the same telescopic technology that his spear did. This allowed it to be used both as a single handed weapon and as a two handed weapon.

Keeping it in its one handed state the White Hunter clipped it to his belt.

Now he was properly armed. Now it was time to hunt.

 **End**

 **Author's Comments:**

 **Hi everyone, yeah I've been kind of MIA these past couple of months and I apologize. College really wears you out and makes it really hard to get any writing done.**

 **This chapter was kind of short but don't worry there should be another one on its way pretty soon, or at least sooner than this one came out.**

 **So yes, Lydia, my character from Predators: Variety of Prey, is back!**

 **For those of you having a hard time visualizing what she might look like, a similar look would be Cassie Cage from the Mortal Kombat franchise. Her armor is supposed to be Zaeed's alternate armor from Mass Effect 2.**

 **Also I gave a little extra backstory on the White Hunter. I really like his character, I kind of like to think of him as a combination of all my favorite fictional characters.**

 **Don't forget to review and favorite this story so that you can keep up to date with my latest updates!  
See you next chapter!**

 **Bye Bye!**


	4. Chapter 3: Family Reunions and Massacres

Chapter 3

Family Reunions and Massacres

Of all the things that on the battlefield, a family reunion of mercenaries ranked fairly low and Jane's list of possibilities.

Zaeed was shocked beyond words, which was honestly a first. "Lydia?!"

Lydia, who was apparently Zaeed's daughter whom Shepard had never heard of, was equally shocked. "Dad?!"

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?!" demanded the elder mercenary.

Her father's voice snapped Lydia out of her stupor. Quickly she picked up her jaw and replaced the surprise on her face with a look of cold dismissal.

"What am I doing here? I'm doing my damn job Massani," she replied, giving extra emphasis on 'Massani', "how about you show some professional courtesy and back off."

This time it was Zaeed's turn to be shocked into silence. "Lydia…Lydia I-" She ignored him and turned to her employer.

"Boss," she nodded, "it's good to see you're not dead, you haven't paid me yet."

"You'll be paid the agreed amount when this is all over," replied Aria. She looked past the mercenary for a moment. "Where's your partner?" she asked.

Lydia flashed an impish smirk. "He's busy making life hell for Cerberus and doing his best to keep your fleet alive. You really think you got past Omega's defenses on skill did you?"

Aria nodded approvingly. "I see, so that was him that shut down those turrets. Well, at least I know I hired the right people."

As the Asari crime boss was updated on the situation by her mercenary, Shepard moved off to the side with Zaeed who was still in a sort of shocked haze. When they were finally far enough away that Jane was sure they wouldn't be heard, she finally said, "you never told me you had a daughter."

Zaeed shrugged and quietly replied, "you never asked."

Shepard raised a questioning brow. "Seriously? I never asked? I never asked about a lot of shit and you told me anyway. Hell I couldn't get you to stop telling me about stuff. But in all those stories you never once mentioned that you had family."

The elderly mercenary scowled. "I don't."

"What are you talking about?"

"Lydia is…she…" Zaeed struggled, "…we aren't exactly on talking terms."

"Why?"

Before Zaeed could respond Aria called for Shepard to join her.

"We'll talk about this later," she promised. As the commander left Zaeed relit his cigar and took a long huff of the smoky tobacco.

"Fuck me," he mumbled quietly.

"So," Garrus and Miranda walked up to him, "you have a kid."

In a brief fit of rage Zaeed tossed his cigar at the Turian. It bounced off his chestplate and the elderly human mercenary grabbed him by the collar.

"Drop! It!" Zaeed growled dangerously.

Garrus held up his talons in mock surrender. "Alright! Alright! I get it! You don't want to talk about it!"

"Damn right I don't!"

Before anymore could be said Shepard interrupted. "Everyone! Group up, we're moving on! Zaeed, please don't murder Garrus."

Zaeed released the Turian and stomped off after the Commander.

Garrus casually brushed himself off. "You just couldn't resist could you?" asked Miranda. The Turian shrugged and simply replied, "It's sort of my thing."

#

The six continued through Omega until they finally arrived at a store called **Batarian State Arms**. According to Lydia, before Cerberus had taken over BSA had been the premier shop on Omega to satisfy a citizen's need for tools of destruction.

"The owner of this here shop sold me my baby right here." She affectionately stroked the barrel of her massive weapon.

Garrus, who had been curious about it from the start, finally got his chance to ask. "What is that gun anyway? I've never seen its model or make before."

"Probably not, this thing's illegal everywhere except for the Batarian Hegemony. It's called the BXM-56, a man-portable heavy machine gun. It's supposed to use some sort of experimental thermal cooling technology so that the user can keep firing for as long as possible."

"Nice," Garrus nodded appreciatively.

"It also links to my visor," Lydia gave a light tap to her Sentry Interface visor, "helps me identify and shoot down targets faster."

"So it's like a…smart gun?"

Lydia shrugged. "I guess you could say that. I've just taken to call her: Big Anna."

"Focus you two," ordered Shepard as she motioned for everyone to stack up on the door of a store called **Solar Electronics**. "Zaeed, you take point. Lydia you cover him. The rest of us will follow in after."

The two mercenaries gave uncomfortable glances towards one another. "This isn't going to be a problem is it?" Shepard asked sternly. She was sympathetic to whatever family problems Zaeed and Lydia were having, but now wasn't the time for it to start getting in the way.

Zaeed responded first. "Of course not Commander, I'm a professional."

Shepard turned to Lydia. "Whatever," she replied, hefting Big Anna to a ready position.

"On three, one…two…three!" Shepard hit the activation key and the door slid open. Zaeed moved in with his assault rifle, named Jesse, placed firmly against his cheek. Lydia gracefully moved in behind her father despite the larger bulky weapon she held.

After a quick sweep Zaeed shouted, "Clear!"

"Clear!" Lydia said soon after.

Shepard and the rest of the team moved into the store.

"The Defense System Station should be through a door at the back of the store," said Aria.

"Why keep the station at the back of some electronics store?" asked Miranda.

"It's a good front, no one expects one of Omega's most vital stations to be located in some run of the mill shop. Plus with the amount of crowding Omega has to deal with we had to work with what we could take. This shop just so happened to have some extra space."

The six moved through the deserted shop cautiously.

"Everyone stay on alert," ordered Shepard, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Resistance had so far been minimal. But there was no doubt in Shepard's mind that the General knew where they were headed. So why hadn't they had to fight tooth and nail for every inch they'd traveled to get to this point?

They soon found the prophesied door, its holographic activation key was red: locked. When Garrus attempted to override its lock its VI unit responded with: _"Access denied, environmental hazard detected."_

The Turian cursed. "Damn, it looks like the next area is pure vacuum and needs to be repressurized."

"Can you do anything about it?" asked Shepard.

"I can start a reset, that'll cause the system to go through its maintenance cycle which should repressurize the area but it'll take time."

"How much time?"

"Ten minutes at least."

"Do it, not like we have many other options."

"Alright," Garrus tapped a few keys on his Omni-tool and announced, "initiating!"

#

"Sir, Shepard and Aria have entered the electronics store. They're attempting to gain access to the Defense Station."

"As I predicted. Tell all teams to move in."

"Roger! All teams, operation is go! I repeat: operation is go!"

Petrovsky turned to his chess table and sprung his bishop out of its corner to take his enemy's pawn.

#

Almost as soon as Garrus had begun the system reset, three doors in the store hissed open and soldiers clad in white and black stormed into the shop.

" **Intruders located! Stop them here!"**

Miranda cried out, "Ambush! They've got us boxed in!"

Lydia leveled Big Anna and roared, "LET'S ROCK!" Her finger jammed down on the trigger and Big Anna let loose a storm of mass accelerator rounds into the oncoming tide of Cerberus troops. Cerberus bodies begin to hit the decks covered in blood as Lydia swept her weapon back and forth like a deadly hose.

"Everyone find cover and dig in" Shepard shouted over the boom of Big Anna.

" **Someone take that bitch out!"**

"Ohohohoho! You wanna take me out?! Well I'm right here fuckers! Come and get me!" Lydia punctuated her sentence by saturating the air with mass accelerator rounds. Six Cerberus troopers were unfortunate enough to be in her immediate view and went down with at least twenty new holes in each of them.

With all of Cerberus's attention focused on the crazy howling punk mercenary the rest of the team was finally allowed some breathing room launch their own retaliations.

Shepard fired her pulse rifle with pinpoint accuracy. Her weapon's rounds cut through the enemy's shields and finished them off with focused bursts. A Guardian tried to rush her but as he moved in a sniper rifle boomed and his head exploded.

" _I've got you covered Shepard,"_ said Garrus over the Team COM.

Not far away a trio of troopers and a Centurion suddenly combusted. They screamed their lungs out before Zaeed finally saw fit to put them down for good. As the elderly mercenary reloaded his weapon he saw a number of Cerberus combat engineers moving in and placing down turrets.

"They're bringing in emplacements!" he shouted over the COM.

Garrus, using his sniper rifle, managed to pick off two engineers before they'd managed to set their turrets down. However another two managed to place their devices. The turrets immediately went to work pinning down Shepard's team.

Shepard managed to hit one turret with a quick burst before it switched targets and started firing on her position. "Damn it!" she cursed as bullets ricocheted off her cover, "can anyone get a shot on those turrets."

Miranda as it so happened, had fought her way to a position flanking the turret. Seeing her chance she fired her Overload app, striking the turret with enough electricity to overload its circuitry and render it useless.

"I've got one!" she announced.

"And I've got the other." The second turret was suddenly surrounded in a deep blue aura and lifted off the ground before being crunched in a ball the size of watermelon. But Aria didn't stop there, like a demon she rushed the Cerberus line.

Two troopers fired on her but their rounds were absorbed by her barrier. Lower her mass she leapt into the air, flying over their heads, only to raise her mass just as she was above them and slamming into the deck with biotic shockwave.

Every bone in their body was shattered from the sheer force of the shockwave. Another duo of trooper attempted to kill the Asari crime boss. She blasted the first with her shotgun then picked up the other with biotics and viciously slammed him into a wall with enough force to crack open his helmet.

" **Get her!"** Cerberus troopers brandished their stun batons and rushed the single Asari, dog piling her. For a moment the queen of Omega was buried under a body of bulky white and black armor. But then they all began to glow blue.

In a single brilliant explosion of biotic power they were all thrown from the Asari. Their bones and bodies breaking as they smashed into walls, floors, stands, and even the ceiling.

Aria stood victorious. "Omega is mine you sons of bitches!"

Suddenly Garrus's sniper rifle boomed again and a Centurion standing behind Aria slumped the floor with hole in his head.

" _You missed one."_

Aria sneered at the Turiain's quip.

"Looks like the cycle is almost done," said Garrus.

"Everyone stack up, same as before. Zaeed take point, Lydia cover him." The team wordlessly moved to their assigned positions.

" _Repressurization complete. Access enabled."_

Shepard hit the door's activation key and the door slid open with a hiss. Zaeed moved in and immediately spotted two Cerberus troopers lying in wait for them. They opened fire, Zaeed allowed his kinetic barriers to take a hit white he lines up and fired a concussive shot.

The high powered round knocked both troopers off their feet, allowing Zaeed to brutally finish both off with close up headshots. "Clear!" he called.

As they continued forward Aria was once again contacted by her fleet.

" _Lost two more transports! Can't keep up evasive maneuvers much longer!"_

"We're right outside the defense station Jarral! Hang tight!" She turned back to Shepard, "let's hurry! Defense station is right beyond that door."

Garrus broke the encryption lock on the door and the team moved into the Defense Station, only to find it empty.

"What the…where the hell are the guards?" demanded Lydia.

"There over here." Miranda pointed over to a pair of bodies on the floor near the station control panel. The rest of the team gathered and the brunette knelt down to examine corpses. "Both had some sort of blade shoved into the back of their necks, it quick and clean. Whoever did this has had experience with attacking from stealth."

"We can worry about it later. Right now we need to take Omega's defenses offline." Shepard moved to the control panel and began shutting down the defenses. One by one the GARDIAN turrets shut down and the kinetic barriers preventing entrance to the hangers went offline.

"Jarral, the defenses are down. Signal the surviving ships to converge on the rendezvous point," ordered Aria.

" _Aye. Approaching…"_ Static suddenly cut through the line _"…damn it! The Cerberus fleet just took down another transport! Aria, is there any way we can switch Omega's defenses to work for us?"_

Aria turned to Shepard. Jane quickly attempted to switch the GARDIAN's IFF tags to see the Cerberus vessels as hostiles but the encryption was beyond her capabilities, she turned back to Aria and shook her head.

Before Aria could curse their luck, the remaining Cerberus guard returned. Two troopers entered through a side entrance and spotted the team.

" **Intruders!"** They raised their weapons to fire. But before either side could make a move, Jane saw a flicker of light behind the troopers.

Suddenly two omni-blades sprang to life in mid-air and sank themselves into the backs of the troopers. Both troopers let out a pained scream before slumping to the deck. The Omni-blades deactivated and the shimmer of light decloaked, revealing himself to be: a Quarian.

Lydia immediately lit up and tackled the Quarian with a hug.

"Zekk!" she cried, "there you are! Where ya been little buddy?!"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," the Quarian chaffed under the smaller woman's strength. Finally Lydia released her hold and gave him a solid punch to the shoulder.

"That thing you did with the Omni-blades: that was sexy, nice job." She gave him an approving thumbs up.

"Thanks," he replied, he then turned to the rest of the group. "Aria," he gave a curt nod.

"Zekk, good, we could use your tech skills right about now."

"Of course," Zekk politely pushed his way past Shepard and the rest of her team. The fingers of his right hand danced across the control panel while his left hand held an Omni-tool. Ten seconds later, the GARDIAN turrets breathed back to life and began to fire upon the Cerberus fleet. "All done."

"Whoa, nice work pal," complimented Shepard.

Aria contacted her fleet. "Jarral, you've got your cover. Move to the hangers while Omega's defenses clean up Cerberus's fleet."

" _Aye. Approach trajectories plotted. We're already queuing up."_

"Bray, come in. Status?"

" _Rendezvous site secured. Hanger doors enabled. Will have them open soon."_

"Need them open now! My birds are coming in. Prep for reception." With her orders doled out Aria turned back to Shepard. "Shepard this is Zekk, he's the contact that I told you about."

"So you're Commander Shepard, I've heard a great deal about you." Zekk held out his hand and Shepard took it.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. You're the one who took out these guards?" Jane gestured to the bodies on the floor.

"Yes, I made it here before you did. Figured it would be a good idea to try and take care of the guards while I was waiting."

"Well we definitely appreciate the assist."

"Zekk, I think I've heard of you," said Miranda, "you're that Quarian assassin vigilante right? The one who took down a Batarian slaver operation in the Vular system."

"That's me."

"Oh Zekky," Lydia suddenly grabbed the Quarian in a choke hold and proceeded to rub her knuckles across the top of his head. "All grown up now are you? How's the wife huh? You two been making sweet interspecies love?"

"Ow! Hey! Lemme go!" The Quarian complained, his cool as ice demeanor suddenly gone.

"As fun as this is, we do have to get to the rendezvous site and link up with my forces," Aria reminded sternly.

"What is this rendezvous point exactly?" asked Shepard.

"That's where we're headed. It's a bunker I established on D-deck for my…more sensitive operations."

#

Petrovsky watched the camera feed with great interest.

" _It's utter impenetrable,"_ continued Aria, _"with its own secret hanger and dock. Independent power source, life support, munitions. You'll see."_

The camera zoomed out, only to find the Quarian, Zekk, pointing his omni-tool at the camera. The tool shifted and transformed itself into an Omni-bow, which then fired an arrow right into the camera. The feed went dead, replaced with static.

Petrovsky snorted. He turned to his chessboard and watched as his opponent's knight moved to take a pawn.

"And so the pieces continue to move. Deploy to D-deck! Investigate and await further instructions."

#

"Looks like the General knows where we're going," said Zekk.

"Then no time for sightseeing. Shepard, take the lead."

#

All great hunters knew that in order to have a successful hunt, a hunter needed to understand the environment in which the prey lived in. As a result the White Hunter had spent his first hours on Omega familiarizing himself with the terrain.

This jungle of steel was new to the White Hunter but it was nothing that he could not learn to adapt to. Its massive towers were like the mountains he had scaled as a youngling. Its sewage pipes were akin to the hard meat hive tunnels he so often traveled. And its streets were no different to those he'd seen in other cities.

In fact, if anything, this jungle was much easier to traverse than others. All light in the station were artificial, leaving many areas fairly dark and easy to sneak through.

The White Hunter's exploration of Omega eventually led him to what he assumed to be some sort of security checkpoint.

A junction linking together four streets. At the entrance to each street there was some sort of laser fence. The White Hunter had seen a small rodent touch the fence and explode into flames, the fences were obviously for some sort of crowd control. The denizens of the station far outnumbered the Cerberus forces. These security checkpoints were the only way to section off and control the population.

This particular checkpoint was very well manned. Switching his mask to track the pulses of living organism, the White Hunter counted exactly twelve guards around the compound. The number inside the outpost building remained unknown.

As much as he would have enjoyed personally mapping the entire station, the White Hunter had a mission to complete, which meant that he needed a map of the station sooner rather than later. Logic dictated that as the occupying force on the station, Cerberus would have a detailed map of the entire station.

The White Hunter unsheathed his wristblades. He had spent too long stuck inside of his ship, it was time to slake his need to kill.

#

Pvt. Barnes, a Cerberus trooper patrolled the east gate with his partner Pvt. Ramos. Today they were ordered to be on especially high alert due to the fact that Omega had come under attack.

But Barnes wasn't worried. He doubted that any attacker could make it past the fleet and even if they did there would be no way they could fight their way this far into Omega. And on the off chance that they somehow did, there was no way they were taking this checkpoint.

Not with eighteen trained and heavily armed Cerberus personal manning it. Not with heavy turrets mounted and aimed down each street. And certainly not with an honest to Earth Phantom among their numbers. That sword wielding son of a bitch moved like lightning, Barnes had quite a few gene mods himself but sometimes he wondered if that Phantom was even still human.

A burp of static in Barnes's ear interrupted his private musings. _"This Outpost Control, beginning routine check in. Zero-One how copy?"_

Ramos looked over at Barnes and shook his head. It was a small deal they had going, taking turns answering roll call. Apparently it was Barnes's turn to reply.

"Outpost Control, this is Zero-One checking in. All clear."

" _Copy Zero-One. Zero-Two how copy?"_

The check in continued on. It was just then that Barnes remembered that it actually hadn't been his turn and that it had in fact been Ramos's turn. He turned to chew Ramos out for being a cheating prick, only to find that Ramos had suddenly disappeared. Barnes's heart, despite his adrenaline control implants which kept his heart rate steady, skipped beat. His finger flicked the safety off of his Harrier rifle and he took a quick sweeping look around for his partner.

"Ramos, where the fuck are you?" No response.

"Ramos, buddy, if you're fucking with me I swear to god I will tear your god damn-"

Something suddenly slammed into Barnes from above. It was heavy, humanoid, and white. He punched whatever it was twice and then tossed it off of him. It was only then that he saw that the thing had in fact been Ramos…minus his head.

"Jesus Christ! Outpost Control we have a trooper down! Need immediate-" before Barnes could finish something slammed his head into the ground and then grabbed him by the collar and lifted him straight off the ground.

The air split apart, revealing a massive hulking pale form armed to the teeth with all sorts of sharp objects. It lifted Barnes up so that their faces were just centimeters apart. A Xeno-hunter! It was a fucking Xeno-hunter!

" _Zero-One, please repeat?"_

Sharp pain erupted out of Barnes's gut and he whimpered.

" _Zero-One respond?"_ Barnes felt his feet grow cold. His vision began to blur.

The Xeno-hunter sheathed his blades and then dug into Barnes's wound using his clawed hands. Barnes coughed out blood and the pain erupted anew, but this time Barnes didn't whimper, he screamed.

"HELP!" he finally managed to scream, "HELP ME!"

#

" _HELP! HELP ME!"_ said Zero-One over the radio, what followed was a series of gurgles and incoherent cries.

"Zero-One?! Zero-One?! Come in!" demanded the radio operator.

"He's dead!" shouted Lieutenant Samuels, putting a stop to the operator's calls. "Looks like we've got a breach. I want all units on high alert, send our response team to Zero-One's gate."

"Aye sir." The operator began to dole out the Lieutenant's orders.

Lieutenant Samuels unholstered her sidearm and flicked off the safety.

"What about me ma'am?" Samuels turned to see the Outpost's resident Phantom. Like all Phantoms he was usually silent, so it was a bit of a surprise to see him taking the initiative to talk.

"You stay here until we know what the hell we're dealing with."

"Ma'am, the response team is moving on Zero-One's location."

Samuels leaned over the radio and spoke. "Talk to me response team. What are you seeing? Over."

#

The response team was four bodies strong and led by Sgt. Riggs. A veteran soldier of Cerberus, Riggs had seen his fair share of shit. But as he and his three men approached patrol Zero-One's gate, Riggs realized he needed a new definition of fair share.

Two bodies.

One on the floor with its head cut off, that was the cleaner one.

The second was a different story.

" _Talk to me response team,"_ said the voice of their CO, Lt. Samuels. _"What are you seeing? Over."_

"Jesus fuck," muttered Riggs, "what the hell aren't we seeing?"

" _Come again response team? Over."_

"Uh…Outpost Control. We found Zero-One, it's…messy."

Messy was putting it lightly. For some reason Zero-One's killer had seen fit to butcher the poor guy.

Not only had they killed him. But they'd tied a rope around his ankles, hoisted him up, and hung him on a street light. Then as if that weren't enough, they'd cut open the guy's belly and allowed all the intestines to spill out so that it just hung out in the open.

"Orders Outpost Control? Over."

" _Response team, secure the area and await further orders. They can't be far. Over."_

"Roger Outpost Control, beginning sweep." Riggs swept his hand, indicating for his team to begin searching. They were all too eager to begin, no one messed with Cerberus and got away with it.

They hadn't walked five feet when Riggs heard a faint whirling noise, like something moving very fast through the air. By the time Riggs realized what he was hearing it was too late.

Something fast whooshed through the air right past them, there was a spray of blood from an unidentifiable source, and the whole team froze. For a moment none of them moved and all of them stared at the blood spatter at their feet.

Finally their point man moved, his feet gave out, and his head fell off.

"Shit! Where'd that come from!? Did anyone see?!"

"Oh my god! Oh my god!"

"Control! We've been engaged! Repeat! We've been-!" Something slammed into Briggs and sent him hurdling into a stack of supply crates. Pain lanced through his leg, Briggs tried to move it and found that he couldn't.

Through his blurred vision he saw his two remaining men fire wildly into the air. There was a shimmer and one of them went down in a spray of blood. The other fired at the shimmer but only succeeded in riddling his comrade with bullets.

An invisible pair of hands grabbed the last man by the head and twisted. The trooper's head went a full 180 degrees around, he fell to the ground without another word. Fear gripped Riggs's heart, he tried again to move his leg but it just wouldn't respond. He looked down and saw, to his horror, that it was bent at an unnatural angle.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

" _Response team! What the hell is happening out there?!"_ Riggs saw a shimmer, without bothering to aim he fired his rifle in its general direction. He saw a pair of eyes flash -fucking flash!- and heard an inhuman growl.

"Jesus! It's-!" Briggs fired again, "I can't see it! It's cloaked! Whatever it is its fucking-!" Briggs heard the same whooshing sound that he'd heard in the beginning. Something fast hit his hand and then he realized that his hand was fucking gone!

"Oh! Oh my god! My hand! My hand is…it's…" Blood gushed from the stump of his hand.

" _Response team! Response team what the hell is it! Give me something I can-"_

Riggs lost the rest as something grabbed his leg and dragged him from out from under the pile of crates he'd landed in. The pain in his leg became renewed and he screamed for every moment of it.

"No! No! No!" With his one remaining hand and his stump Briggs desperately tried to crawl away but the thing held firm. He heard the sound of something sharp being unsheathed, then felt something sever his spine.

Briggs vision went dark and the last thing to come out of his mouth was a whimper as the darkness finally enveloped him.

#

"Response team! Response team come in!" Nothing, Samuels cursed loudly and slammed her fist into a nearby wall.

"Orders ma'am?" asked the operator.

"Have all teams pull back to outpost control. Whoever is hitting us, we're not going to let them pick us off one by one anymore. Tell the turret operators to be on high alert. They see anything that isn't us, they shoot it with extreme prejudice."

"And what about me?" asked the Phantom operative.

"You get to do your job. Go out there and bring me their heads on a fucking platter."

The Phantom saluted. "Yes sir." Without another word he disappeared into his cloak.

"Ma'am, teams are pulling back to Control."

"Good," Samuels nodded, "good, let's see them get us when-"

" _Control! This is Zero-Two! We've got contact! We've got-AAAAHHHHHHHHH!"_

Samuels rushed over to the radio. "Who's got eyes on the targets?!"

" _This is Zero-Four. We're near Zero-Two, moving to assist!"_

"Negative Zero-Four! Repeat! Negative! Get your ass over to Control and-"

" _We have visual of the hostile! Oh shit, it's fucking-GRAAHHH!"_

"Zero-Four? Zero-Four respond!"

" _Watch out! He's fucking jumping! He's fucking jumping!"_

" _This is Heavy-Zero-Two, opening fire on the hostile!"_ Samuels recognized that call sign as the turret operator on the North end of the checkpoint. She listened as heavy turret fire and screams filled the COM.

"Damn it," she cursed. "Zero-Three, move to assist Zero-Four and Zero-Two."

" _Acknowledged. Moving to assist."_

"Heavy-Zero-Two, what's you're status?"

Gunfire exploded out of the radio. _"FuckinGRAAHHHHH! Stand still you slippery-"_

#

The White Hunter finished the trooper off by sinking both of his wristblades into the trooper's gut and then pulling in opposite directions, literally ripping the human in half. His comrade foolishly rushed the White Hunter with a stun baton.

The trooper's swing was well practiced and precise, but to a hunter as experienced as himself it looked slow and clumsy at best. The White Hunter easily dodged the trooper's swings with minimal difficulty.

"FuckingGRAAHHHHH! Stand still you slippery-!" Whatever the trooper was going to say next was cut off as the White Hunter grabbed him by the throat and hefted him up.

The turret operator, who up until now could not get a decent shot at the White Hunter, was now free to open fire. The hunter heard the familiar winding up sequence of the heavy turret. Without a moment's hesitation he tossed the trooper at the turret.

Unable to deviate his aim the turret operator riddled the airborne trooper with bullets.

"Oh shit! Oh shit!" The Operator released the trigger and stared in horror as the trooper's bloody corpse flew onto the barrel of his turret. Using the turret operator's shock to his advantage, the White Hunter sprinted at his top speed, closing the distance between himself and the turret.

By the time the operator realized the hunter was upon him it was too late.

"NO!" Defiantly the operator drew his pistol. He managed to fire one shot, which missed, before the White Hunter's hand enveloped his head and slammed it repeatedly against the steel wall of Outpost Control.

#

Samuels and the Operator froze as they heard the repeated drumming of something smashing itself against the wall of their Outpost Control.

"What the hell?" she asked aloud.

The drumming stopped when it finished with a final juicy crack.

"Jesus Christ, order the turret operators to come inside now!"

"Ma'am?"

"You heard me, they're no good to us out there."

"Roger. Heavy-Zero-One through Four, vacate your posts and enter Outpost Control, acknowledged?"

No response.

"Repeat. Heavy-Zero-One through Four, vacate your posts and enter Outpost Control, acknowledged?"

Still no response.

"God damn it." Samuels had had enough of this. Without thinking she stormed towards the door and slammed her fist down on the activation key. The door hissed open, revealing Heavy-Zero-One manning his turret.

"Soldier! Did you not hear my orders?!"

No response, the soldier did even turn around to acknowledge her.

"Soldier!" Samuels marched forward, "Did you not hear my orders?!" She roughly grabbed the turret operator by the shoulder and spun him around, only to find a hole the size of a dinner plate punched through his chest.

"Jesus!" She let him go and the body slumped the ground, the wound was still smoking.

The radio operator ran up behind her. "Lieutenant?! Lieutenant I…oh, crap!"

 _Kkkkk-kkkkkk_

Samuels heard the clicking and felt its presence on her back. Apparently the radio operator did too because Samuels heard him let out a frightened yelp followed by the unmistakable sound of flesh being torn apart.

Refusing to go down without a fight, Samuels drew out her Talon submachine gun and whipped it around, pulling the trigger as she went. A massive scaly hand with an iron grip caught her by the wrist and squeezed hard enough to force her to release her weapon. Its soulless eyes glared into her, freezing the blood in her veins.

A hunter, a goddamn xeno-hunter.

The hunter raised its left hand and a pair of wicked serrated blades popped out of its gauntlet. She knew what would come next and it was not the way she planned to go out. She drew back her free hand and poured every ounce her strength into striking the thing right across the face.

The hunter barely seemed to register the strike. Well, points for trying right?

It drew back its wristblades and thrust them forward.

Samuels closed her eyes at the last moment. But instead of hearing the sound of her own blood being spilled, she heard a loud distinctive _clang_ of metal on metal. She opened her eyes to see that the hunter's wristblades had been stopped by a single long blade.

"About damn time," shouted Samuels.

Upon seeing a proper opponent, the hunter lost all interest in Samuels and promptly released her. Samuels stumbled away, clutching her broken hand. "You stall him," she ordered, moving back into Outpost Control "I'm calling HQ for reinforcements."

The Phantom nodded and raised his sword into a ready stance. The hunter sheathed its wristblades and thumped a closed fist against its massive chest. It then stretched a single hand out, extended its index finger, and curled it towards itself twice. A universal sign for: come at me.

Without hesitation the Phantom exploded forward with grace and speed above any normal human. Once it was in range the Phantom attacked with a horizontal swing aimed at swiftly decapitating the xenohunter.

Against any other opponent it would have worked. But the hunter simply threw itself onto its back foot, intentionally dodging the sword by the barest of margins. Then, quicker than the Phantom could react, the hunter pounced forward and delivered its massive foot into the Phantom's chest.

With the speed, strength, and size of the hunter combined the kick had enough strength to cave in a human chest. It was only thanks to the Phantom's armor and excellent reflexes that it survived. At the last possible moment the sword wielding Cerberus soldier threw himself back, lessening the impact of the kick. Armor and augmented muscles took care of the rest.

But even with all that the Phantom found himself flying back a fully ten feet before slamming into the Control station's railing. Pain jabbed into his sides, his shield alarms screamed from the impact and showed itself at a mere 10%. His suit's VI showed multiple fractures running along his back as well as at least five cracked ribs.

Weakly the Phantom reached down to his belt and unclipped a syringe and injected it into his neck. He hadn't expected to need an adrenaline shot so soon but clearly he was going to need it if he hoped to survive against this alien.

Energy shot through the Phantom's body. It felt like all his senses had been dialed to eleven. His ears became more sensitive to sound. His eyes picked up color in much more vibrant detail. And the pain…the pain was still there but mulled into a low thump rather than a screaming jab.

The Phantom peeled himself off of the railing and raised his sword again. The hunter had been patiently waiting with its arms crossed.

Realizing that there was no way he could survive a straight fight, the Phantom chose to do the only sane thing: execute a tactical advance backwards, or retreat. He back flipped over the railing and fired his armor's palm cannon twice.

The hunter dodged both shots but they had served the purpose of distracting their target. The Phantom was given a chance to quietly slip into the shadows using his EM Cloak. Even to the hunter's thermal based vision the Phantom was now completely invisible.

#

Cautiously the White Hunter pursued, step by step. With each step the White Hunter carefully watched and listened for signs of his opponent. A normal opponent would have been hard pressed to find the invisible Phantom. But the White Hunter had faced such opponents, not only amongst his own kind but amongst prey as well.

One Salarian whom he and his hunt brothers had captured had thought to use the same tactic against him. That Salarian's skull was now his trophy and was displayed on the wall of his ship.

The White Hunter concentrated his senses on hearing. Almost immediately he heard a faint rush of footsteps coming from his left. In a blur of motion the White Hunter unsheathed his wristblades and stabbed them towards a slight shimmer in the spectrum.

The sudden light resistance against his blades told the White Hunter that he had found his mark. The Phantom's cloak died, revealing the human impaled through the chest on the pale warrior's weapon. Weakly, the Phantom's sword fell from his grasp.

The hunter lifted him up and brought his opponent in closer so that their faces were simply inches apart. Through his one good eye the White Hunter stared into his opponent's face.

With his freehand the albino predator grabbed the Phantom by the throat. With his massive hand and a roll of his shoulder he pulled upwards. The human squirmed horribly as flesh began to tear and bones began to snap. The White Hunter continued to pull until finally the human's head was ripped off in a glorious spray of crimson blood.

His first trophy of the hunt, the first of many.

#

Samuels was pretty sure she was in panic. Her armor's HUD informed showed that her heart was beating at 110 beats per minute. Sweat rolled down her face despite her armor's cooling system. And her hands wouldn't stop shaking even as she carefully contacted HQ on the Outpost's radio.

"HQ! HQ! This is Lt. Samuels calling from Outpost 17 on deck 9! Service Code Whisky-Tango- One-Seven-Six-Six-Nine-Five-Eight-Two! Do you copy? Over."

A horrible pause followed in which Samuels wondered whether or not she'd been heard and about the horrible consequences of if she hadn't.

" _Lt. Samuels this is Omega HQ. We read you loud and clear. What is your situation over?"_ Samuels let out an audible breath of relief and nearly dropped to her knees.

"HQ we have confirmed contact of a xeno-hunter! Repeat, confirmed contact of a xeno-hunter! The thing's ripped apart all my men. It's currently engaged in combat with my outpost's Phantom but I don't know how long that'll last. Requesting immediate reinforcements! Over."

#

"Sir!"

Petrovsky turned away from his screens. "Soldier?"

"We have an outpost reporting confirmed contact with a xeno-hunter. Orders?"

For the first time in a long while, Petrovsky was caught by surprise. A xeno-hunter? Another one? From the initial hunting party of four that they'd spent the better part of three months stalking, Petrovsky knew that they'd only managed to take down three.

Was this the missing hunter?

"Deploy the closest mechanized response team immediately. We're not letting this one slip through our fingers again."

"Yes sir! Deploying response team!"

Petrovsky stroked his beard. The mechs would keep the hunter occupied and might even be enough to capture it. But Petrovsky didn't want to take that chance, it occurred to him that this might be a good chance to test out 's prototypes.

"Call up the good doctor, it is time we talked."

#

Samuels awaited for a response with bated breath. Finally she was granted her answer.

" _Lt. Samuels, response team is on route to your location. ETA 2 minutes."_

Two minutes!? She'd be hanging from her ankles with her skin ripped off in two minutes!

"Damn it HQ! I need back up right fucking-!" A pair of razor sharp blades ripped through the communications control panel.

Whatever Samuels was going to say was forgotten as overwhelming fear overtook her. She could feel the hunter standing right behind her, its overwhelming presence was like a fear inducing musk. She was so frightened that she didn't even question why it hadn't already killed her.

She could try going for her sidearm, but even in her fear addled state she knew doing so would be futile. Still, being human meant following the instinct to survive no matter how stupid it might seem.

Her hand reached down and briefly touched the butt of her pistol. Then something grabbed the back of her head and pushed her face down onto the table.

Then there was only darkness.

#

The White Hunter had smashed the human female's head onto the table. Not hard enough to outright smash it, but hard enough that she would no longer pose a threat.

He had not spared her because she was female. No, he was quite familiar with killing females of many races. He had spared her because she had shown herself a coward. Leaving her subordinate to fight instead of fighting herself, going to call for help, it would have stained his honor to spill the blood of one so unworthy.

And quite frankly, he just didn't have the time or patience for it.

With the guards eliminated the White Hunter walked over to what he assumed to be the control console for this outpost's computer systems.

Using a cord from his own wrist-computer, he plugged into the system and immediately began downloading all relevant information. Eventually the White Hunter found what he was looking for, a layout of Omega.

With his objective completed and a new trophy hanging from his belt, the White Hunter allowed himself to feel a bit of pride. That pride vanished when his ears detected the faint rhythmic sound of footsteps outside of the building.

Judging from the amount of sound being generated there was more than one set of footsteps.

He immediately switched his mask's visual settings to one that allowed him to see through the walls of the building.

The White Hunter clicked his mandibles together in what was his race's equivalent to a smirk.

Artificial soldiers, mechs, as the lesser races called them.

Soulless automatons with no survival instinct.

The White Hunter unsheathed his wristblades.

He'd make this quick.

#

General Petrovsky watched his monitors with a wrapped fascination that he had no had since he first saw the xeno-hunters in action.

He had thought them magnificent back then. An alien that had dedicated its entire life to proving its evolutionary superiority by hunting down other lifeforms. One could say that its culture was similar to that of the Krogan. But unlike those dumb hulking reptiles who only knew how to hit things with their head.

They knew how to ambush, they knew how to observe, and they knew how to hunt.

The first time he'd observed these magnificent beings had been when one had torn apart a Cerberus patrol. Cerberus had been aware of the activities of the xeno-hunters for quite some time but that had been one of the few times they'd gotten a solid lead on one.

The patrol had of course been butchered and the hunter had gotten away.

When four new ones had arrived on Omega, Petrovsky had seen it as quite the opportunity.

The four though quite impressive had not been quite as amazing as the previous one. Something about the way they fought, the way they'd operated, had been very…sloppy. Petrovsky had deduced that these ones might have been younger, inexperienced rookies on their first excursion.

It would certainly explain how they'd managed to capture them without losing a ridiculous amount of men.

But the one Petrovsky was currently watching on his monitors, this unusually pale member of the species that was so effortlessly tearing through the advanced combat mechs. This one was not sloppy and it certainly wasn't inexperienced.

He had seen it stab its blade directly into where the mech's central processor unit was housed. Only someone with experience knew how to dispatch a mech so that it didn't keep coming after you even after it had had its limbs blow off.

"Remarkable!"

The sound of a familiar French accent caught Petrovsky's attention and turned him away from the monitors.

"Ah, Dr. Dufour."

"General Petrovsky, I received your message." The doctor was only half concentrating on his greetings. His true attention was placed solely on the monitors and Petrovsky couldn't blame him. The way the xeno-hunter moved was simply awe inspiring.

The practiced primal way it ripped through the mechs with a savage grace unfound amongst any of the other races.

"It is magnificent, I simply must study it in my lab!"

"In due time doctor. I suspect this one will not be as easy to procure as the others. Speaking of which, your prototypes, the hybrids, are they ready for use?"

The smile that Dufour had been wearing up until now disappeared. "Ah yes, my creations. They have not yet been tested, I have no idea how they will perform in the field. If I had more time…perhaps something besides the hunter to test them on…"

"Hmm…unfortunate, I would have rather enjoyed seeing how they worked. No matter, we have other to deal with its kinds."

As if on cue, Petrovsky heard a pair of heavy footsteps come up behind him.

"General, sir!"

"Major Vilmos, I have a new mission for you."

 **END**

 **Author's Thoughts**

 **Hey guys! This time the chapter came a lot quicker huh?**

 **I'm pretty happy with this one, a lot more action. Plus it's always fun to right a Predator killing spree, especially when the victims are idiots like Cerberus. I hope the White Hunter's killing spree made you all happy.**

 **Not a lot of happenings between Lydia and Zaeed so far but don't worry that'll probably happen next chapter.**

 **Also, ZEKK IS BACK! YAY! Yeah I loved that Quarian, I thought to myself: how can I make him different for this story?**

 **Instead of a timid little stereotypical Quarian engineer, he is now a hyper lethal assassin type character. But every now and then you'll see tidbits of the old Zekk come out.**

 **Moving on: Cerberus moves forward with its plans!**

 **Vilmos will be stepping back on to the stage soon.**

 **Petrovsky mentioned something about Dufour working on "Hybrids"…what could that be I wonder? You'll have to wait to find out.**

 **The xenomorphs have yet to show up, that's on purpose. Don't worry, next chapter will have plenty interactions with them.**

 **That's all for now. Remember to share this story and to put it on alert so that you can stay up to date with the latest chapters.**

 **Bye bye!**


	5. Chapter 5: Bug Problem

**Chapter 4**

 **Bug Problem**

"Oh my god."

There was honestly no other way for Jane to express her complete horror with the scene before her.

Blood was everywhere. Spilled on the floor, splattered on walls, even dripping from the ceiling. The whole scene was resembled a hellish Jackson Pollock painting. There were people hanging upside down by their ankles, with their fucking skin torn off!

"It's like a god damn slaughter house," said Zaeed. The elderly merc took one last huff of his cigar, which he then proceeded to rudely stamp out on one of the skinned corpses.

Shepard shot the mercenary a glare. "Seriously?"

"Hey, they're all dead and they're all Cerberus. It's not the good guys I'm disrespecting."

Jane let out an exasperated sigh and Zaeed just shrugged. Unwilling to reprimand the mercenary any further, Shepard moved to join Garrus. The Turian was currently crouched over the ripped apart remains of some dozen assault mechs. Having once been a part of C-Sec, investigation was basically second nature to

"What do we got Garrus?"

The Turian picked up a severed mech's head and tossed it between his hands.

"I spotted bullet pockets along the walls and in the floors. All these mechs were firing at a single direction, at a single target."

Jane frowned skeptically. "One guy did this? That doesn't seem possible."

Garrus shrugged. "I could've done it. You could've done it."

Shepard shook her head. "No, I mean that." She pointed at the mutilated hanging bodies.

"Each of those guys weighs at least…200 pounds, plus another 30 in body armor. Whoever did this had to-"

"Had to drag each one up and hang them individually," finished Garrus. He nodded and finally tossed the mech's head away. "Which should have taken hours, maybe even a full cycle considering the number of bodies."

"I counted at least a dozen, probably a few more."

"Then definitely a full cycle. But the blood is fresh, none of these men have been dead for longer than an hour. So whoever did this, did it all in less than an hour."

"Then it couldn't have been a single person. It's just not possible."

Garrus shook his head. "Stranger things have happened."

Over to the side Miranda fought the urge to heave out her lunch. "Who could've done this?" she asked aloud.

Zekk silently shook his head. "Not who, what."

The Quarian shared a knowing glance with the female human mercenary. Lydia nervously rolled her tongue around inside of her mouth as she carefully scanned the surrounding area with her weapon.

Only Aria did not seem disturbed by the scene. In fact she looked upon the mutilated bodies of Cerberus with a certain amount of admiration. The only thing that irked her about it was that she had not done the mutilating herself. Not even this was enough to pay back Cerberus for what they had done to her.

The heavy steps of approaching armored boots interrupted her inner musings.

Shepard asked, "I don't suppose this could be the handy work of one of your people?"

Aria shook her head. I picked everyone under my command, and none of them, not even the Krogan or Vorcha, are capable of this. No…this is someone else…something else."

The Asari walked over to the only body that hadn't been skinned and hanged. She recognized it as one of Cerberus's Phantom operatives. This one was a male and had apparently died with his sword in hand. More interesting however was that his head was missing. Judging from the tear marks on his neck, the head had been ripped off using pure brute force.

"That's awful," said Shepard.

Aria grunted in agreement. "I'd like to meet the one who did this, maybe offering them a job."

Shepard recoiled in shock and disgust. "You can't be serious. Whoever did this is clearly not right in the head."

"I don't care if the one who did this is a psychopath, an assassin, or a varren who learned to walk on its hind legs. I only care if they're the best. And judging from this…" she gestured to the carnage, "they are definitely one of the best, if I only I had a name."

"I know its…uh…their name," said Zekk with Lydia by his side.

Aria raised a curious brow. "Oh? Do tell."

"The skinned bodies, the slash wounds, and a torn off head. This is the trade mark style of a serial killer who's been making itself known around Omega ever since you left. A killer called: 'The Hunter'".

"Interesting name, care to elaborate?"

"The name comes from the Hunter's MO, stringing up bodies to bleed out and taking heads for trophies, just like a real hunter would do."

"How do you know the heads are for trophies?"

"I…um…well did you notice that only one body was missing its head?"

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, the Cerberus Phantom. I've fought them before, like fucking ninjas on speed."

"His head was taken because he was probably the only one who put up an actual fight. All these other troopers probably ended up shooting air more than what they were aiming at."

"Why leave the unworthy hanging like meat?" asked Shepard, gesturing to the multitude of strung up bodies.

Zekk hesitated at first but eventually explained. "Because that's what they were to it," he said solemnly, "just more meat for the slaughter."

Out of the corner of her eye Shepard saw the Quarian tighten a hand into a clenched fist. If she had to guess, judging from his knowledge of the Hunter and the way he spoke, Zekk had some sort of history with the serial killer.

"I noticed that all the wounds on these troopers are slash wounds, also part of the Hunter's MO?"

Zekk nodded somberly. "Not sure why but the Hunter likes to kill up close and personal, been known to use firearms every now and then but most of the time it's some sort of blade."

"Not a bad way to kill if you've got the skill for it," commented Aria, "a blade moves too slow for kinetic barriers to activate."

Behind his visor Zekk's eyes narrowed upon the Asari crime boss. Without an ounce of fear or hesitation the Quarian stomped right up to her and stared her straight in the eye.

"You admire it!" he accused.

Without giving an inch, Aria replied, "it takes a certain strength to kill a dozen well trained soldiers and then still have enough time to mutilate their bodies, I respect strength."

"There's nothing respectable about it! There's nothing admirable about that!" Zekk stabbed a finger at the carnage behind him. "It's a killer! A murderer! Hunting people down and butchering them for his own sick amusement!"

Aria simply crossed her arms and raised an inquisitive brow. "His?"

Zekk's eyes widened and his voice disappeared into his chest as he realized his slip up.

It seemed that Shepard's guess had been correct. Zekk had some sort of history with the Hunter. Perhaps a loved one or friend had been a victim of one of the Hunter's killing sprees? Or maybe the Quarian had even had a personal encounter with the killer?

"We should keep moving," decided Shepard. "How far is the bunker?"

The two continued to glare at one another for a time before Zekk finally broke it off.

"Not far," he said, we just have to get through that energy field. The Quarian pointed to one of the four checkpoint gates made up of pure red energy. He activated his Omni-tool and moved towards the gate, "just give me a few moments and I'll get this thing shut down."

As the Quarian worked Shepard quietly moved to stand next to him. A few moments passed where neither one of them said anything.

Zekk was the first to break silence. "I know what you're going to say," he began, "and I'll tell you straight away that I'm not going to apologize for my outburst."

"I was going to ask you to."

The Quarian paused in his work briefly before resuming. "You're not?"

"No, in fact I agree with you. I'm all for putting a bullet between the eyes of a bad guy. But not for this, this all just seems so…excessive."

"I would have used the word monstrous, but yeah, I'm glad we're on the same page." The Quarian let out a sigh, "it's my own fault really, losing my cool I mean. I knew what I'd signed up for, I knew what she was like, I just…I just didn't think she'd admire its work."

"Why did you sign up to work with Aria?" asked Shepard, genuinely intrigued. "You're a vigilante right? I'd have thought you'd rather take Aria down than work with her."

"Vigilante is a strong word. I'm not like that like Archangel guy who took down all those mercenaries. I'm more of a…." Zekk briefly paused in his work again as he searched for the right words, "A mercenary with a consciences."

"Miranda said you took down a Batarian slaver operation."

"Yeah, I was paid to do that. Some Salarian politician was in cracking down on slavery in that system. He didn't have the men to do it so he outsourced to hired guns. I took the job because it paid well and I could do it without feeling guilty."

"And working with Aria?"

"Aria might be a bitch. But at least she was a fair bitch who let people do what they want. Cerberus declared martial law and likes to use aliens for their experiments."

"So basically you chose the lesser of two evils," concluded Shepard.

"Something like that. To be honest I'm pretty selfish, it's not Omega that I'm worried Cerberus will destroy. This place can burn for all I care, but first I'm going to take my stuff and move far away."

The energy gate suddenly shut down and Zekk deactivated his Omni-tool.

"Well, if it makes you feel better. I'm pretty selfish as well."

Behind his visor Zekk gave Shepard an inquisitive look. "You are?"

Shepard nodded. "Truth is that I don't really care about Omega, or Aria. I just want to finish off Cerberus once and for all."

Zekk let out a chuckle. "I think that's a cause a lot of us could get behind."

#

 _Afterlife_

 _Cerberus Omega HQ_

"I'm sorry sir, the mechs have lost sight of the target."

Petrovsky silently cursed his misfortune and applauded the Hunter's ability.

Even with the latest software and upgrades downloaded into their mechanized response teams, thermal vision, short range sonar, and EM detection, the Hunter had still managed to give his pursuers the slip. It hadn't even left so much as a blood sample for them to take.

This successful evasion of their pursuit only cemented Petrovsky's theory that this particular Hunter was in fact a veteran of the species. An experienced predator that had honed its craft through hundreds of battles and hunts. They would not be able to capture it with the same techniques that they had used to bring down its compatriots.

"Disappointing," Petrovsky finally spoke, "but not unexpected. Have the mechs perform a full sweep of the area and then secure it for Forensics Team 01."

"Yes sir, initiating full sweep now." As the technician doled out the orders through hits console, Petrovsky turned to the man standing next to him.

"Well Major Vilmos, what do you think?"

"I think I'm going to have my work cut out for me sir," the Major responded without missing a beat. Petrovsky nodded in agreement.

"Your assessment?"

"Definitely more experienced," said Vilmos, parroting Petrovsky's own thoughts, "the one's my team have brought in before tended to stay out in the open once they were discovered. They'd charged head first into our firing lines, shrug off the bullets, and then proceed to kill. This one though…it doesn't operate by the same tactics."

The Major ordered a replay of the combat footage recorded by one of the response team Mechs. "Look," he said, pointing at the screen, "right there. Our mech fires at it while it tears into another. But as soon as its done it reactivates its cloak. You'd think it would take that chance to run, but instead it de-cloaks just as its about to pounce on another. It's like a…a…."

"A ghost," finished Petrovsky.

"Yes sir, a damn ghost phasing in and out of reality to tear us apart. The pattern is so erratic that our mechs can't get a beat on it, can't say that our boys would do any better. I only see a few ways of taking it down sir, even fewer if you want it alive."

"Alive would be preferable Major, this is our encounter with a mature member of the species. It would be a shame to send such a specimen to the morgue." Dr. Dufour had finally decided to chime in. As usual he voiced his preference that the Xeno-Hunter be taken alive for experimentation and analysis.

"Hmm," grunted Vilmos, "I have a few ideas to get the job done, but I'll need several squads and heavy infantry units."

"Whatever you need you shall have Major. In the meantime, let us address the barbarians at our gate."

#

"Achoo!"

"Spirits save you," Garrus said, uttering the Turian of 'bless you'.

"Thanks," sniffed Shepard as she wondered how dust had gotten through her helmet's filtration system.

"Quiet!" ordered Zekk, "I hear gunfire up ahead."

"That's where the rendezvous point is, it looks like Cerberus got there before us," said Aria.

Almost immediately after she finished her sentence Aria was contacted on her Omni-tool.

" _Aria! It's Bray, you were right we've got company!"_

"What's the fleet's status?" she demanded.

" _Still landing inside of the bunker-"_ the transmission was interrupted by the sound of gun fire and nearby explosions, _"damn it! We can't hold out much longer!"_

"Keep the enemy out!" ordered Aria, "Lock it down! Now!"

" _Roger! Lower the blast doors! Lower the blast doors!"_

"Sounds like they need help, better pick up the pace! Let's go people!" At Shepard's urging the whole group broke into a sprint. Before long they arrived at the end of the street where a massive gap separated them from their objective. From across the schism Shepard could see Cerberus forces assaulting Aria's mercenaries.

Even from this distance it was clear Cerberus had the upper hand. Their superior training allowed them better coordination than the ragtag team of hired guns and the ATLAS battle suits ensured Cerberus fired superiority on the battlefield.

"Damn it!" cursed Aria, "Bray! We're at the East flank but we can't reach you, get someone to extend the bridge now!"

" _Shit! Alright I'll-"_ Shepard saw one of the ATLAS suits fired off a volley of rockets that tore up the mercenary position.

Aria's transmission cut. "Bray?! Bray come in!" when no response came Aria stomped her foot into the floor, "shit! We've got to get over there somehow!"

Zekk stepped up to the edge of the street, looked over the end, and saw the bottom of the drop 30 decks down. The Quarian gulped and then took a calming breath.

"Hey!"

"AH!" Zekk leapt away from the edge with any sense of calm completely gone.

"Hehehe," chuckled Lydia.

"Damn it, why the hell would you do that?" asked the Quarian.

Lydia shrugged, "I dunno, I'm bored without anything to kill."

"Well then you're in luck, I might have a plan to fix that."

#

A few moments later and Zekk had gathered together Aria and Miranda, the Biotics of the group.

"You want us to…toss you?" Miranda asked skeptically.

"Yes," replied Zekk.

The former Ceberus Operative looked at the gap and then back at the Quarian. "I'm not sure about this."

"I say we go for it," said Aria, "better to try something than wait here a second longer doing nothing. Besides, it's not that far a throw."

"That gap is 20 feet at least," Miranda pointed out, "the farthest Biotics can hold something is 10 feet at best."

"I don't expect you two to get me the full way," admitted Zekk, "I just need you to get me close enough to use this." The Quarian activated his Omni-tool and immediately constructed a miniature hook from Omni-gel. "This is my grappling hook app, if you can get me far enough I'll be able to use it to get across and activate the bridge."

"I'm not so sure about this," Shepard cut in, "if you don't make it it's an awfully long drop. Maybe she should just double back and look for another route."

"No! We go with this," demanded Aria, "if we look for another route Bray and the others won't be able to hold out for long enough. This is our best chance, we toss the Quarian and hope that his hook can reach the other side."

"He could die," reasoned Shepard.

"So could any of us," Aria shot back, "you knew what could happen when you agreed to be part of my war."

Shepard's temper flared. She scowled heavily behind her helmet and prepared to chew out the Asari. Boss of Omega or no, nobody had the right to lecture her about putting other's lives in jeopardy! No after all the shit she'd went through and all the friends she'd lost.

But before she could let loose, Zekk stepped in and stopped her. "It's alright Commander, I know the risks and I've accepted them." He then turned to Aria and Miranda. "I'm ready when you are."

#

Zekk positioned himself between the two Biotics.

"You sure about this?" asked Shepard for the third time. The Quarian let out a shaky breath as she stared out over the gap between where he was standing and his destination.

"Uh…I'm a little less sure about it than I was ten seconds ago," he admitted, "but I'm ready."

Shepard placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just…try not to think about it," she said.

"Try not to think about what? The 300 foot drop that will combust my body like a soggy garbage bag if I don't make it? Try not to think about that? Is that what I shouldn't be think about?!"

"….uh….yeah, don't think about that."

Zekk gave her a thumbs up. "Wasn't going to."

Aria and Miranda's bodies suddenly became aglow with the blue aura of Biotic power.

"We're ready!" announced the human.

Zekk took in another breath and nodded. "ON 3!" he announced.

"1….2….3!"

Zekk broke into a sprint, as he neared the edge his body began to glow with the same blue aura surrounding Aria and Miranda.

With a loud yell the Quarian leapt over the edge, as he did the two Biotics cast out their hands. Zekk's scream became louder as the Biotic force propelled him forward through the air.

"Ohshit!Ohshit!Ohshit!Ohshit!" he screamed then remembered that the push granted by the Biotics would not be enough for him to reach other side. Even as he thought about it he felt himself gradually losing momentum and drifting downwards.

Without another thought he activated his grapple launcher and fired it! Much to the Quarian's own relief, the hook firmly latched itself onto the safety rails of the other side.

Unfortunately Zekk now realized that he had not accounted for the fact that once anchored to the other side, he would still fall the length afforded by his grappling hook's tether. Gravity would ensure that the arm his hook was attached to would most likely be dislocated, if not completely ripped off his body.

Not wanting either to happen, Zekk hurriedly activated the reel on his launcher. The tether began to become taunt, once it was firmly tightened Zekk felt his entire body jerk upwards while gravity continued to pull down.

The conflict of forces led to a loud pop.

"AGH!" he cried out.

" _Zekk!"_ he heard Shepard's voice call over the Team COM, _"are you alright?"_

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied weakly as the launcher continued to reel him up like a fish, "but I'm pretty sure I just dislocated my shoulder."

" _Is it going to be a problem?"_ asked Aria.

"No," Zekk replied, more firmly this time, "I can still make it."

It took the launcher another agonizing three minutes to reel the Quarian back up. Once he reached the top Zekk had to painfully swing his own body upwards, using his own arm as an anchor. Once he managed to pull himself up onto the deck using his uninjured arm he deactivated his Omni-tool.

"I made it," he announced over the COM, "I'll try and find the control panel to activate the bridge."

" _Great, once we're over we'll get you some help,"_ said Shepard.

"No need," Zekk suddenly bashed his dislocated shoulder into a nearby wall, painfully but quickly popping it back into place, "just get over here and deal with these Cerberus bosh'tets."

#

"See, it worked," Aria said with a same cold arrogance she said everything else.

"It was a risk," Shepard shot back, "one we might not have needed to take if we found another route."

"If we had done so we might have wasted time that we don't have. This war is about momentum Shepard, if we lose any Petrovsky will capitalize on it and wipe us out," Aria replied evenly, "if we aren't willing to make risks, we're doomed to fail."

"Don't!" Shepard pointed at the Asari, "don't start with me on risks or making hard choices. I made my fair share of hard choices during the Reaper war."

"And that's why I brought you on board. You know how to make them…or am I wrong?" asked Aria, raising a brow. "Maybe you don't have what it takes to make those choices anymore?"

Before Shepard could retort, the bridge suddenly extended from the other side, allowing them passage to their objective.

"Let's go!" ordered Shepard, motioning for everyone to move across the bridge.

Aria noted that the Commander hadn't responded.

#

"Interesting," mused Petrovsky as he watched the Commander's group move onto the battlefield.

With the addition of Shepard's group to the mercenaries holding down Aria's bunker, Petrovsky knew that it was only a matter of time before his assault force faultered. Shepard and her allies had a knack for turning the tides of battle.

The General was about to order reinforcements when one of the men at the monitoring station called out. "Sir! Our sensors are picking up activity from the Hive!"

Petrovsky smiled.

"And so new pieces enter the board."

The next few moments would prove interesting indeed.

#

Shepard's group entered the fray in a flurry of bullets and Biotic attacks.

Garrus fired three successive shots from his sniper rifle, each shot taking off the head of a Cerberus soldier.

Use of overwhelming firepower must have run in Zaeed's family. The elderly mercenary and his estranged daughter squeezed the trigger of their weapons and refused to let off until everything in front of them was dead.

"Come on you fuckers!" screamed Zaeed as he tossed a pair of inferno grenades. The explosives landed amongst a group of Cerberus soldiers. One of the troopers quickly moved to grab and toss them away, only for both to go off in his hand and set the whole group on fire.

Shepard activated her Omni-tool and fired her Incineration app. A stream of flame jetted out of her hand and enveloped a group of troopers. They screamed horribly until Shepard mercifully used her pulse rifle to end their suffering.

As she finished off the first group a trio of Cerberus Guardians advanced on her position in a phalanx. She fired her Incineration app again, letting loose another stream of flames. But the Guardian's shields held firmly against the fire and they advanced unscathed.

Miranda moved to assist her CO. She cast her physics manipulating powers and ripped the shields out of the hands of all three Guardians. Defenseless, Lawson sent all three hurling over the edge with a Biotic wave.

As usual Aria was a sight to behold. She was an absolute maelstrom of Biotic destruction. Every time she moved her hands Cerberus soldiers were tossed into the air, slammed into the ground, or sucked into a singularity.

The singularities were the worst. While most singularities were only powerful enough to suck targets together and hold them in place for a time, Aria's were enough to do that and go even further. Victims of her singularities found themselves crushed and crunched in with other victims until all that was left was a beach ball sized ball of meat and bones.

"Get the hell off of my property!" the Queen of Omega demanded as she grabbed a Cerberus trooper with her Biotics and viciously slammed him to a paste on the deck.

Behind a barrier the Asari crime boss spotted her Batarian Lieutenant Bray, nursing a bleeding gut wound.

"Bray!" she called, moving to his side.

"Boss," the Batarian weakly acknowledged, "sorry, wasn't able to hold out as long as we'd hoped."

"Why aren't the cannons online?!" she demanded.

"Something's jamming the activation signal," coughed Bray, "we tried to identify, but with everything that's going on…"

"Shepard! We need to activate those cannons!"

"It's probably a mobile jammer, most likely being held by one of their engineers. Everyone keep a look out!"

" _I've got eyes!"_ said a familiar Quarian voice, "moving to eliminate!"

Shepard was about to protest and order Zekk to hold back for them to help. But her protest died on her lips when she saw the Quarian rush the Cerberus lines.

Armed with only his Omni-tools, Zekk fearlessly leapt into combat against armored humans wielding guns. When he landed he was surrounded by six soldiers, as they turned to fire upon him he activated both his Omni-tools and rapidly fired his sabotage app.

When the soldiers squeezed their triggers, their weapons exploded. With their advantage of range gone, Zekk activated his Omni-blades and moved in. The first soldier he finished with a quick swipe of his blade that sliced through the human's throat. Zekk moved on, leaving the man to die from aphixiation and blood loss.

He moved towards two more who both went for their side-arms, but proved too slow on the draw. Zekk's hands shot up and his blades entered both trooper's skulls through their jaw. Yanking out his blades and allowing both bodies to fall opposite ways, Zekk turned to the remaining three.

Using his left Omni-tool, Zekk deactivated his Omni-blade in favor of a miniature crossbow. As he sprinted towards the last survivors he fired the crossbow's payload, three flash-forged silicon-carbide blades.

All three blades found themselves stuck inside the left most trooper's skull. The last two actually managed to draw their weapons. The one on the right drew his pistol while the one on the left pulled out a standard issue shock baton.

Against what was expected, Zekk went after the one with the shock baton first. The trooper was bigger than Zekk and more heavily armored, but he was also about as graceful as a rhino. The Quarian dodged under the human's swipe then came back up to shank his Omni-blade into the man's ribs.

The Cerberus soldier cried out and Zekk took the opportunity to grab him in a chokehold from behind. By then the final soldier had taken aim and fired his pistol. Zekk held his hostage out in front of him and let him soak up the bullets.

Once he heard the distinctive _ping_ of the trooper's pistol ejecting its thermal clip, Zekk dropped his now dead hostage and leapt at the final soldier. The Cerberus trooper desperately tried to load a new clip into his weapon but by then Zekk was upon him and he sank his Omni-blade deep into the Human's chest, slicing through his heart.

Zekk gracefully yanked his blade out and allowed the body to fall. But the Quarian wasn't done with this specific human. With his foot Zekk pushed the soldier's corpse over, revealing that the man had been wearing a large bulky machine.

As an engineer himself, Zekk had immediately recognized the device on the man's back. Taking a knee and activating his Omni-tool, Zekk set about hacking into the jammer's frequency.

"I found the device," he announced over the COM.

" _Good!"_ he heard Aria say, _"now smash it and let's turn these cannons on!"_

"No," responded Zekk.

" _Excuse me?"_

"I'm going to try hacking into it. Cerberus wouldn't send just one jammer in, we smash this one and we'll just have to do the same to the other. But if I can find the frequency I can send out a counter signal that will turn their jammers into nothing more than ugly heavy backpacks."

" _Fine! Just do it quick!"_

"Already half way and…done! Sending the counter signal!" Just as Zekk was about to hit the button he heard two loud thumps from behind.

He turned to confront the noise and his eyes widened. Without hesitation he vaulted out of cover just as a volley of rockets struck the position he'd just been occupying.

Seeing that their forces were failing, Cerberus had sent two more ATLAS suits to assist the one already on the ground.

#

 _Afterlife, Cerberus HQ_

" _Command! This is Lancer Squad! We've arrived on the scene!"_

"Good," replied Petrovsky, "focus your attention on the Quarian. If he sends out his counter signal they'll gain the edge in firepower."

" _Roger that sir! We'll make him a smear on the deck!"_

#

" _Damn it! I can't send the signal with these damn things on my ass! Someone blow them up already!"_ demanded Zekk.

"You heard the man, give him covering fire!" ordered Shepard.

"Covering fire coming right up!" cheered Lydia as she squeezed Big Anna's trigger and let loose a torrent of rounds onto one of the heavy battle suits. The ATLAS actually seemed to buckle under the sheer volume of fire being poured onto it.

Lydia paused only for a brief moment to switch Big Anna to Disruptor rounds and then immediately resumed fire. The ATLAS pilot desperately tried to turn his machine to face his attacker, the amount of disrupting rounds hitting him was slowly frying the ATLAS's systems. Soon smoke was pouring of the controls. Not long after the whole suit simply failed and tipped over in a fiery heap.

"Big baddie one is scrap!" she announced.

#

" _Lancer Zero-Two is down!"_

#

"Vakarian! Give me covering fire!" ordered Zaeed.

" _Laying it down!"_ The elderly mercenary heard the rhythmic bark of the Turian's assault rifle and took that as his cue to move. He mantled over his cover and charged at the ten foot tall mechanical machine of death.

With its attention turned towards Garrus, Zaeed saw the perfect opportunity to take his shot. On the back of every ATLAS was a very exposed exhaust port. Once he was close enough to shiv a knife up it mechanical ass Zaeed took out one of his inferno grenades and began to climb.

It was difficult, especially given Zaeed's age. But thankfully he was granted the small mercy of the ATLAS staying in one spot. Once he was within arm's reach Zaeed armed the explosive and dunked it into the port.

Not wanting to be part of the aftermath, Zaeed quickly let go and rolled away.

A few seconds later and the grenade went off. The ATLAS's cockpit was filled with flames and the muffled screams of the pilot. By the time he managed to hit the emergency eject and pop off the hubcap it was already too late and his smoldering corpse slipped from its seat and hit the deck.

"Two down! One to go!"

#

" _Lancer Zero-Three is down! Damn it! We need back up now!"_

"Roger Lancer Zero-Three, diverting troops to your-"

"Belay that order," interrupted Petrovsky.

The COM operator looked back at the General, surprised. "Sir?"

"Order all forces to retreat instead. The time for a cultured battle is over..." Petrovsky watched as his holographic chessboard deactivated itself. "…now is the time for survival."

#

Zekk slid behind cover as the last remaining ATLAS continued to pepper his position with mass accelerator rounds.

When there was a brief lull the Quarian popped up and fired his Overload app, striking the mech suit with enough watts to kill an elephant. Unfortunately its shields took the brunt of the damage and it continued to fire on his position.

"Damn it," he cursed, "does someone want to help me with-"

" _Cerberus reinforcements incoming!"_ announced Garrus.

This time Zekk cursed in his native dialect. "Right, I'll just deal with the bosh'tet myself. At least it can't get any worse."

As if on cue an unnatural earsplitting shriek broke through the constant chatter of gunfire. An icy pit formed at the bottom of the Quarian's gut.

Another shriek broke out.

For a brief moment every single combatant forgot about the battle and listened to its unearthly echo.

"Oh no."

#

"What the hell was that?!" demanded Aria as a single unearthly screech became a chorus.

Shepard scowled. Something about that screech was familiar, it took her a moment but she finally realized where she'd remembered it from.

"Oh god," she paled, "everyone regroup! Everyone regroup right now!"

"Regroup? Why? What the hell is that?" Aria demanded again.

Suddenly a new scream broke through the air, but this one was different. Aria and Shepard turned to face its source just in time to see one of Aria's Asari mercenaries get pulled over the edge of the platform.

A second later they heard another scream as a Cerberus trooper was dragged into a nearby vent. "Jesus!" he shouted, "HELP! HELP! HEL-" The rest of his words were drowned away as his hands finally gave out and he was pulled in fully.

"Zekk!" Shepard called over the team COM, "turn on the cannons! Turn on the cannons right now!"

" _I did!"_ the Quarian called back, _"the damn things are taking forever to boot up!"_

"Shepard! What the hell is going on?" Aria demanded for the third time. The Commander was just about to explain when suddenly they heard yet another scream.

"HELP ME!" yelled a familiar voice.

Aria and Shepard whirled around to see Bray getting dragged into a ventilation duct. The Batarian had luckily found a pipe to grab on to, but that had only afforded him half of his body. The rest was still stuck inside of the vent.

"HELP!" the Batarian cried out.

"Bray!" Aria and Shepard rushed over and grabbed the Batarian's hands.

"Pull!" ordered Aria.

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing?!" Shepard shot back.

"FUCK! JUST SHOOT IT!" screamed Bray. Aria let go of the Batarian's hand and pulled out her sidearm to do exactly that.

"NO!" shouted Shepard, knowing what would happen.

Too late, Aria fired her weapon three times and a horrible high pitched shriek came out from the vent. But then Bray began screaming about his body burning.

"Oh Gods, they're burning me! It's burning me! Pull me up please! Please!"

Together the Asari and Human pulled the Batarian out of the vent, only to find out that they hadn't been able to save all of him. The entirety of Bray's lower half had been burned off.

"Oh god! Oh god! My legs! I can't feel-" Aria fired her pistol again and Bray felt no more.

"What the hell!" demanded Shepard, stunned by Aria's decisive mercy killing.

"I did him a favor trust me, now you tell me what the hell is going on-" The bloody ventilation shaft that the two had just pulled Bray out of suddenly rattled. Both women quickly pulled out their weapons and aimed down at the vent.

A few moments passed and nothing happened.

Then suddenly there was a screech and mass of silver teeth and claws came rushing out. It happened so fast that neither woman could react quickly enough. The mass of limbs, teeth, and claws tackled Shepard and pinned her to the ground.

"Jesus!" the Commander cried out, on pure instinct Shepard threw her hands out and held back the black mass trying to bite her face off.

#

Aria for her part, and to her credit, was only stunned briefly by the scene in front of her. A large insect like alien with a phallic dome and a sinister looking stinger had tackled her human partner as was now attempting to bite off her face with a small inner jaw that kept pistoning out its mouth.

"Get it off! Get it off!"

Shaking off her initial shock Aria walked up to the strange creature and placed the barrel of her gun on to the thing's dick shaped head.

"Nonononono! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" begged Shepard. Deciding not to question the human's pleas, Aria instead struck the thing with a biotically empowered kick.

The strike sent the thing tumbling across the deck until it struck some metal piping where its body then proceeded to dent the metal. Amazingly enough however the thing still had enough strength to pick itself up and bare its silver fangs at them.

"Now can I shoot it?" asked Aria,

Shepard's answer was to level her pulse rifle at the overgrown bug and empty a whole clip into its body. The thing fell to the ground a pool of green blood. That green blood soon began to sizzle its way through the metal deck it had landed on, answering Aria's question of why Shepard had begged her not to shoot it while it had been on top of her.

"What is that thing?"

"A long story," Shepard answered cryptically.

A series of screams garnered their attention. The two turned to see that the over grown bugs were tearing into both the Cerberus forces and Aria's mercenaries.

The Cerberus forces had gathered themselves around the ATLAS, allowing the massive battle suit to do most of the heavy lifting while the infantry provided support. Unfortunately even the ATLAS's massive armament could not hold back the black tide of claws and teeth for long.

Eventually the bugs would sneak close enough to strike down one of the soldiers, lessening the number of guns holding the back. One by one the Cerberus soldiers died, until their force had been whittled down to just four men and the ATLAS.

The group of four supporting the ATLAS did not last long. The first, the Centurion Commander who had been placed in charge of the group, was ironically the first to go. As he moved to reload his weapon one of the bugs leapt on top of him and tore out his throat with its claws.

A nearby trooper attempted to save his commander by filling his killer with holes. The bug died and the Commander spent his last few minutes of consciousness cursing the trooper and feeling the agonizing pain of an acid bath.

That same trooper was suddenly skewered by one of the bug's stinger like tail. The remaining two troopers fell under a sea of black insects, but instead of being killed they were simply knocked unconscious and taken away.

The Cerberus ATLAS stood alone. The gunner religiously fired his heavy machine gun and rockets, barely holding back the constant tide of teeth and claws. But eventually the pilot slipped and the horde of insects moved in.

At first only a few managed to jump on to the ATLAS's back. The pilot desperately tried to shake off the hitchhikers. "Get off you fucking-" A bug landed on the ATLAS's windshield and clawed at the silicon-glass.

"Jesus!" In a panic the pilot drove his rig into a nearby wall, splattering the bug onto the windshield. Unfortunately that also meant that the bug's acidic blood splattered its way all over the ATLAS's exterior.

"Shitshitshitshit!" The pilot cursed as the smoke coming off his burning windshield obscured his vision.

The bugs took this chance to charge the massive metal machine. They leapt onto its body and clawed at its chassis. The pilot's panic became stronger and he began to wildly fire his weapons in hopes of hitting anything.

But soon the bugs found their way to the hole in his windshield left by the blood of their hive sibling.

"No! I know what you fuckers do! You won't take me!" The pilot drew his side arm and fired into the mass of limbs clawing their way inside of the cockpit. He fired again and again, when his thermal clip was overloaded he ejected and reloaded.

He fired until soon he only had one shot left.

With one bullet left the pilot had a choice to make. Fire it at the invaders in a vein hope of escape, or the alternative.

The pilot chose the alternative.

He pressed the barrel of his pistol under his chin and pulled the trigger.

#

"Zekk! Where are those cannons damn it!" Shepard roared as she and her team fought tooth and nail to hold back the endless waves of horrifying nightmares. Her pulse rifle proved to excel in combating the horrors, its massive clip size and nonexistent recoil were perfect for keeping up a constant stream of fire.

Lydia's Big Anna also proved to be as useful as she used it to mow down droves of them at a time without a single pause or break.

Aria showed why she was the Boss of Omega. Her biotics tossed dozens of the bugs back at a time and her singularities drew them into a single spot to be finished off by another.

Zaeeds Inferno grenades were a boon. Shepard didn't question as where the elderly mercenary kept getting the damn things or how he seemed to have a near infinite supply of them, and at the moment she didn't really care. The things were great for incinerating whole bunches of them.

But still, even with all of them working together the horrors edged their way further towards their line, inch by inch. Shepard knew that it was only a matter of time before it was all over and they were overrun.

"Zekk! Come on man!"

"It's a really old system alright! There's nothing I can do!" he shot back as he gunned down two of the nightmares and monitored the progress of the cannons on his Omni-tool at the same time.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity the cannons completed their boot up process and came online.

"Cannons are up! Everyone get back!" he warned.

Three massive rotary cannons perked up on either side of the bunker's entrance as though having just woken up from a pleasant nap. Then immediately the cannon's barrels began to rotate and soon all six were spitting hot molten metal death onto the oncoming tide of horrors.

With the addition of the VI assisted targeting software in each cannon the bug soon realized that this prey simply wasn't worth the losses the Hive would incur to procure. As one they turned tail and slinked back into their vents and crevices, and Omega was silent for the first time that night.

"Holy shit," Zaeed spat out, "talk about a bug hunt."

"It's over now, those dick heads will think twice before coming at us again!" cheered Lydia cockily.

"That won't be the last we've seen on them," said Shepard, causing the mercenary to lose her cheer. "They're not beaten, just done with us for now. But these cannons should help keep the back for a while."

"What exactly are 'they'" asked Aria, "and why the hell are they on my station? You said it was a long story."

"It is," said Shepard, "I'll tell you all about it, for now let's get inside where it's a little bit safer." Aria noted that the Commander said 'safer' and not 'safe'.

The crime boss nodded in agreement. "Everyone let's get inside," she shouted to her remaining forces. "Bunker team, retract the bridges and lower the blast door. We're coming in."

As she and her team entered the bunker, Shepard sighed heavily and shook her head in despair.

"It just couldn't be easy could it?"

 **End**

 **Hi everyone! I apologize for the wait but I've been real busy with college classes. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to put out but I wouldn't hold your breath.**

 **Anyway this was mostly a chapter with action and introducing the Alien into the mix.**

 **You might have noticed but the Mass Effect: Omega character Nyreen did not make an appearance. That will be explained next time.**

 **In the next chapter we'll also be seeing more of the White Hunter and his purpose on the station. Cerberus will also be seeing some extra action, but they will mostly be dying as they always do.**

 **Until next time!**

 **Bye Bye!**


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